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.

@DioneTheDiabolist

My guess, having taught slavery to Year 8 (although a decade ago now!!), is that the question is worded that way to make them consider if there were any benefits. Because if it wasn't in the question they wouldn't consider it at all. It's not that colonialism is being taught as a lovely fantastic thing, its that kids can't get their heads around why anyone would do that to anyone else ever.

That's what I thought too @infinitediamonds.

YABU OP.

Agreed.

It's excellent that children are being asked to think critically.

@Wildswim

The banning of sati.

Sati was a widespread practice in which a widow was burned at the funeral of her husband. When her husband died, her life was deemed worthless, so she was burned alive.

The British outlawed it.

Not condoning sati but it was a rare cultural thing practiced by the women of certain castes. It wasn’t happening all over India and was done when women wanted to end their lives after the husbands had passed. Much like how very rarely people commit suicide after a loved one has passed out here in the west.

It wasn’t a common ritual. It was made FAMOUS when Rudyard Kipling wrote about it, thereby ascribing us as “heroes saving Indian women”.

I agree the question is clumsily phrased.

When my dad worked in west africa he regularly had conversations with some of the older guys who said they preferred british rule due to getting jobs, law and order, building infrastructure and corruption being dealt with. I know thats not the fashionable view but are you going to tell them their experience is wrong?

People very often cant tell you what these constant atrocities actually were which were supposedly taking place daily. They did take place but pretty rarely. The Germans spent a lot of the early 20th century wondering if their colony building would be more successful with the ' more britishcarrot and stick approach instead of just the german stick'.

Have a look at what the germans got up to in africa in the 1900s, the belgians in the congo, dutch in the east indies and the french in indo china. Not fashinable causes though.

The Belgians killed up to 14 million in the congo over only a few years, yet the first thing belgians often say to me finding out im british is some dull wisecrack about the british empire.

So I'll start, was the british outlawing the hindu practice of burying or burning widows alive on their husbands grave good or bad?

@45MillieEpple

Lalalabrador-Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Sorry if I sounded pompous describing my job it seems to have made some people annoyed. Guess you don’t want to buy my new book?grin "Is it called 'The impact of British Colonialsm on India"

ROFL Hahaha LOL 😂😂😂

Not condoning sati but it was a rare cultural thing practiced by the women of certain castes. It wasn’t happening all over India and was done when women wanted to end their lives after the husbands had passed

Stop downplaying it. That's intellectual dishonesty.

You seriously think these women wanted to be burned alive?

Benefit is the wrong word to use. If a child is kidnapped from their family by a wealthy person/family they might "benefit" from the lavish gifts which are bestowed on them. But benefit is a horrible and inappropriate word, isn't it.

My problem isn't that there weren't some upsides to British rule, yes there were. But using "How India benefited" (from being occupied and exploited) is horribly insensitive. Its just a poor and offensive choice of words.

Do people even know why we established "railways" in India? It certainly wasn't to transport people. Just to plunder the country and steal its natural resources. Colonialism was vile with no overt benefits to anyone but us. We were cruel, imposed our rules and culture on other countries and stole from them.

@wildswim your reply infers that there are always two sides and that both deserve an equal consideration?

@Lalalabrador. I quite frankly don't understand how the fact that you are a historian makes you an expert on all areas of world history.

Learning should have some basis in personal hands-on experience, at that age, in my view.

Save it all for GCSE, and maybe combine with some first hand experiences told through poems and dance, etc. I like 'Presents from My Aunts' the poem that used to be on the GCSE syllabus. It's about feelings and the clash of two cultures.

I think, too, that to do justice to the silly question, you'd have to do a bit on how attitudes differed then, back in history, on the part of people coming from different perspectives. Look at some writing. 'Benefits to whom' is a question I'd want to ask. A rural farmer might not be much impacted either way, if British were there or not. Don't class/lump together all recipients of the experience named colonialism. And save it all for A level when the concept of nationhood has already been explored.

Totally missing the point but I read '8 year old' at first and thought...fuck...no wonder kids are stressed these days.

@user1471565182 I agree that the British were more benign than the Belgians and Germans in their colonies.

But it's the British who get all the criticism and experience all the post-colonial angst today, while it's forgotten that other countries had colonies in which they were utterly brutal.

When I worked in India, many years ago now, I met older local people who told me they felt India was better off in many ways under the control of the British. I was very surprised to hear that, but they said they wished the British were still in charge!
So I would say there are many different perspectives to be taken into consideration when writing an essay about this subject.

@Lalalabrador

India did not benefit from colonialism. There is no for or against colonialism. There ‘weren’t good people on both sides’. I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire not a skewed, jingoistic myth of a Britain generously bestowing ‘civility’ on the poor ‘savages’ of the colonies.

I'm not sure that's entirely true. I mean, we benefitted from Roman rule for example even though it was forced upon us at the expense of many indigenous people here.

I thought the instruction to history pupils to "take a balanced" view in an essay meant in relation to the evidence they are considering, as opposed to letting their own biases influence them, not that they have to try and argue 50:50 for something without forming any conclusion. Surely that's one of the key skills history courses are trying to teach?

There's nothing stopping them concluding for themselves that there were no benefits.

Why don't you just ensure your child reads the best articles possible and with your help provides an honest take on colonialism.

It's not like she can fail it if she doesn't give positives, it's not a test.

Can't you just use this opportunity to teach her about it and if you really feel it's inappropriate drop her teacher an email|?

@lcdododo

Isn't that what the Romans did for us?

Yes, but ssshhh, don't tell OP that otherwise she has no argument

That was precisely the quote that came to my mind. I guess there’s no woke points related vilifying the Roman Empire though.

I guess like any professions there’s good historians and bad ones.

@Lalalabrador

India did not benefit from colonialism. There is no for or against colonialism. There ‘weren’t good people on both sides’. I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire not a skewed, jingoistic myth of a Britain generously bestowing ‘civility’ on the poor ‘savages’ of the colonies.

Even from the perspective of a reactionary historian, that would be a rather unlikely way to interpret colonial history. I'm rather surprised that any critical thinker would believe that there is only one "right" answer to any part of history. Colonialism (and the British were not the first or the only colonialists in human history) was a product of many factors and interests at play. It was not a "good thing" but nor was it a "bad thing" - it simply was. From our current perspective in time we can judge it by our standards now, and condemn it - hindsight from a different place in time makes that easy. But there is no simple answer, and I am glad that schools are teaching that fact, and encouraging critical thought. A shame that as a historian you aren't teaching the same thing.

History is complicated, and nothing in it is black and white. You don't have to think colonialism was wonderful or noble or implemented for anything other than profit and empire-growing to acknowledge that there were some positive results mixed in with the many negative ones.

The question seems like a typical way to start a conversation. It doesn't stand out as being inappropriate, though maybe the wording could have been better.

Either our dc go to the same school or this is on the year 8 curriculum this week as Ds has been talking about the same thing in school. He’s come home and we’ve discussed it, although my knowledge about the subject isn’t that really that great.

@wildswim your reply infers that there are always two sides and that both deserve an equal consideration

There aren't always two sides to everything - the gulags and, the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, no one could argue for that.

But on many, many issues, there are. And it's good intellectual practice to consider all angles.

Life isn't binary, it's not black and white /good and evil, despite what woke Twitterati heading down the purity spiral might want us to believe.

It's nuanced. Colonialism has been part of history since history began. Of course it deserves to be explored on all sides. There was good and bad.

@stayathomenightmare

When I worked in India, many years ago now, I met older local people who told me they felt India was better off in many ways under the control of the British. I was very surprised to hear that, but they said they wished the British were still in charge! So I would say there are many different perspectives to be taken into consideration when writing an essay about this subject.

Omg you can’t say that on here! What the hell are you doing actually providing a balanced view from people who were actually there and who’slife and culture were apparently destroyed rather than regurgitating the woke hashtag narrative. Get a grip this is mumsnet for gods sake! I hope you’re ashamed.

The question is fine . It asks for both angles . Let the child and research and make up their own mind . However 8 years old ? Personally I think that’s a bit young to understand all the connotations of an in depth question .