To think this was an inappropriate school task

[Lalalabrador]

My year 8 daughter was asked to write an essay today on the question How did India benefit from colonialism and how was it harmed by it? I’m pretty gobsmacked. I’m a professional historian and sad that something so intellectually bankrupt is being taught to young people.

Why does everything have to be so endlessly binary. There were things the British did entirely for their own benefit, which ended up being incidentally beneficial to India. So it's a question of intention versus effect. The effect can be good with a bad intention, and vice versa. But quite clearly the number 1 mistake that sticks out and obliterates pretty much everything else to me is Partition. So yes of course it's bad through modern eyes. It's also important to look at Britain's actions in their historical context and the contemporary morals surrounding colonialism. Britain was not alone in its colonialist ambitions, and the actions of the Belgians in the Congo, or the Germans in Namibia, are worth mentioning in the context of shocking atrocities that no doubt coloured the contemporary British view of their approach to colonialism, and made them believe that they were taking the "right" approach. I can't really believe you have a problem with a standard essay question that invites various angles.

I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire

I want my daughter to be restricted by my left-wing anti-British stereotype.

It's a perfectly valid question, and yes, of course you can find positives. Banning sati ("suttee") could be an example.

I do wonder how much an 8yo is really going to know about the topic. History teaching in English schools seems to jump around so much, like a grab bag of random bits and bobs. Have they looked at the pre-colonial history of India much, like the Mughal rule period? It's hard to make sense of the British Empire in India unless you know about that kind of thing. And trying to learnabout the Mughals won't make much sense unless you know about the history of Hinduism, Islam and other movements.

For a historian you have a pretty blinkered view on history. Everything that happened in India was just bad was is it? That's it, end of discussion? How narrow minded.

I don't see it like that and wouldn't make moral judgements on the actions of those in the past as part of my teaching

Like, you're framing this as all about the British and judgements on them. But actually, the question was about India and benefits to Indians. The British students were being asked to make judgements on their behalf. The question itself gives them the authority to do that, so the question is taking a moral position.

I am just gobsmacked that anyone who’s studied history can have a problem with a basic costs/benefits question. I only wish my own child, who goes to a school where they are pushing a left-politicised view of history that I really object to, would ask something so neutral that actually does allow for critical thought.

But the most important thing I do is stay out of my kids’ education, even if I disagree with it. I know of parents who complain about utterly inoffensive and bog-standard stuff like this (to make themselves look good) as a teacher myself and it’s the sort of thing that makes our jobs utterly shit. I would never complain to my kids’ schools unless teachers were turning up drunk or not turning up at all.

@Girlyracer
No it’s not that. It’s that we don’t have the right to decide what was/is good and bad.

Beings as it’s not like our country and all that

What would be the primary sources to go with the question, I wonder? Statistics on metres of railway track laid?

It's objectionable to dignify as a beneficial system something which is, arguably, criminal and subjecting the identity, heritage and dignity of groups of a land's inhabitants.

There was a programme a ear ago that asked this question. One positive. (according to the indian lady.) was the north can communicate with the south. Also in the 70,s when Indians were sent out of Ghana would they have come to the uk for refuge if thre had been no empire?

So it’s left wing?
How?

@saraclara that was also my experience. I'm sure the OP will say they all have Stockholm syndrome. It's of course not irrelevant that it's high caste Indians who are very positive about British rule. And yes, the Mughal empire and the structure of power in India has everything to do with it, and the East India company exploited that very successfully. I can find all this quite interesting without solely focusing on the morality of intentions.

I'm a historian. I just decided. (Come to think of it I even genuinely have a good, related degree.) Tomorrow I'll publish a book. Case closed.

There were probably some benefits of colonialism I expect. Maybe sanitation and stuff.

Balance is being forgotten in how people address things these days.

It'd be perfectly reasonable to write an essay which said as a result of colonialism X,Y, Z is there that is beneficial to have, however 'colonialism is bad, guys' because A, B, C.

Teaching in a politically partisan way on a lot of topics is banned nowadays thank goodness, and so it should be.

We get enough leftist brainwashing from the BBC etc.

@cdtaylornats

I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire

I want my daughter to be restricted by my left-wing anti-British stereotype.

When did the truth become an 'left-wing anti-British stereotype'?

...what's the problem?

For a historian you have a pretty blinkered view on history. Everything that happened in India was just bad was is it? That's it, end of discussion? How narrow minded.

@Girlyracer That's Social JUstice Warriors for you. Any wrongthink and you will be cancelled.

@puddinger my children are not British. Neither am I. There are very many students at British schools who are not British. So what's your point?

@RickOShay can you not just read my post? What are you expecting me to add? It's self explanatory.

A functioning legal system
Civil service
Parliamentary democracy,
Superb newspapers
Communications
Financial services funding local businesses
Railways
The introduction of textile industries which dominated the world
Educational system from which lawyers Jinnah, Ghandi and Nehru all benefited

That's really sad. Do you think students are incapable of distinguishing between your perspective and absolute truth? If it's the latter, then perhaps you need to teach them a little more about investigating bias.

Children are heavily influenced by their teachers and other authority figures.

That's a pretty standard type of question. It's not designed to defend colonialism but rather to encourage a more nuanced view of history and by extension current events that goes beyond simply "x bad", "y good".

To answer the question well and get good marks she needs first to identify different areas of life that changed, e.g political freedom, personal freedom, health, education, etc. She then needs to identify different groups of people in India at the time, say, the lowest castes, the highest castes, women, children etc. She then needs to analyse how each social group fared in each area of life, whether it improved for them, or whether it got worse, or maybe a bit of both.

In her conclusion she can conclude that colonialism was a net bad thing but the teacher/examiner just wants to see her ability to analyse and view history in more complex terms. It's about training the brain, not brainwashing in favour of colonialism.

I wonder how people from India see colonialism, how it's taught in schools, what perspectives people have who experienced the early post colonial era and the impact they think it had on modern India.

I don't know if there is a general consensus view or if there are a range of views.

I think it would also be helpful if we could stop the Roman Empire being presented as a good thing for Britain, case closed. Which it invariably was, at least when I was at school and on any of the programmes I’ve watched.

Because if one Empire is “good”, why is another “bad”? (I personally think all invasion of other peoples’ territory is bad)

The fact that humans do really shitty things to people not in their own “group” can’t be mitigated by a few viaducts and railways, whatever the Empire...

I also think there should be more acknowledgement that for most of history life is / was pretty rubbish for anyone not of the ruling / administrative classes. It seems wrong to apportion blame to people who had no real agency in what their country did or was.

But that’s probably too nuanced for Y8!

June 2007, I think you mean from Uganda under Idi Amin. Or were there also removals from Ghana?

Didn't Goodness Gracious Me have a running sketch taking the piss out of colonial nostalgia? I remember there was one with an elderly Indian lady wistfully reminiscing in soft focus about noticing how wonderfully shiny were the boots of the English master of the house as he kicked her to the ground back in the days of the Empire when the colonists had a commendably high standard of turnout or something like that.