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.

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?

My husband and I had the same experience in India 30 years ago. Our shame for what had been done to the country was met with bewilderment. Which in turn bewildered us. Whe you have Indians telling you that their country benefited from the British presence in some ways and that they in turn have done so, it's hard to know quite what to say. But we listened to them, their logic made some kind of sense on their personal level, and we respected that.

It’s not appropriate @Unsure33

@Viviennemary

No not clueless . It would be clueless to indoctrinate students with opinions without them doing their own research .

Yes, we did provide India with an exellent railway system, and provided them with the hardware to do it. It helped travel between the states, and to unify the states.
We provided a huge market for their goods,tea for example.
We also gradually introduced democracy.
We as Christians help end the horrendous act of suutee.
So, bearing in mind just a few things, I certainly think India benefited from Colonialism.

I sympathise op.

My year 10 dd had to write a geography essay on ‘why is Africa poor.’ I am a development consultant. It is slightly more complex than that....

DD threatened to leave home if I rang the school so I held back. But really tempting to send them links to some of the most recent literature.

and historians do debate its benefits, so children should be encouraged to look at these and debate them.

If they can debate the pros and cons of crime. E.g. Murdering a family member. Cons: lots of blood, risk of prison. Pros: can inherit from them, less housework.

@rowmaccerd with all due respect, your divorce is not the same as your country being taken over and being forced out of your homes, forced to learn another language and suddenly living in a country where your race makes you not even a second class citizen...

Those who say there is nothing wrong with acknowledging the idea that colonialism may have had some benefits for those who were colonised - are you for fucking real?! Do you seriously not understand how grossly offensive that is

But then when you look at India before the British arrive (as in East India Company) you find a country where the elite is losing power (the Mughal empire) and the country is slowly splitting into smaller states. (...and this elite was a foreign power.)
The British arrive and obviously took advantage, or simply filling a void... at some point these invaders are kicked out.
Leaving what exactly?

I know, far to complex for y8... My point is, that it's not black & white, but hugely complex.

I don't think you can be a very good historian, OP, if you aren't able to contemplate beginning to answer this question.

@Puddinger but the study of history is not about morals or whether we agree with what happened so comparing it to crime is ridiculous. It is about looking at what historians say about the past, as well as looking at evidence in order to reach your own conclusions, then you can evaluate the views of others.

I think that’s a really interesting question. The answers are all almost certainly far beyond the abilities of the average 12/13 year old though.

Your DC is being asked to think, not join the US Fascist Party.

Why on earth would anyone be terrified by the prospect of free thought and free expression?

SleeplessWB

Eh? Invading and occupying other countries is a crime! Is anyone arguing it isn't? Are you?

Puddinger perhaps we are at cross-purposes. You seemed to suggest that debating both sides of Empire was the same as debating both sides of murder....

@Diverseopinions

I've just realised it's 'daughter studying in Year 8'. It isn't 8 years of age. I read it too quickly.

I wonder what the primary sources are to go with a question like that. Wouldn't it be best to teach history as drawing your own conclusions based on corroborated first-hand witness evidence? Isn't that what, at it's very best, the study of history is about? What is this question going to entail - just evaluating the merits or demerits of what one historian said and what the other said in disagreement? Just secondary sources and the answers you can give being pretty much prescribed by what others have described colonialism as. Not enough opportunity to base conclusion on study of personal testimony of people who were there at the time.

Well they wouldn't be able to study many topics, would they, if they had to rely on primary sources. What would be the point of that? They wouldn't be able to address some of the key skills of history, such as evaluating sources and their reliability. I only went as far as A level with history but I remember that was a major part of it, and ds's work today was all about sources (endless bloody cartoons as I recall!). People who were there at the time aren't always a reliable source of information anyway - imagine the history of Covid being told to future generations by Laurence Fox...

Why do so many posters on this thread seem to assume the teacher has just pulled this question out of the air and chucked it at the kids, rather than the reality, which is almost certainly that the class will have been building up to this task over the last few lessons and will have looked at, and evaluated a range of sources of evidence and how to structure their response.

I'm sure that if the OP hadn't been scared off by all the Advanced Search addicts she's be back to say, no, the teacher gave them this question out of the blue today and they'd never even mentioned India before and have been told they have to argue 50/50 both ways or they'll get a dentention.

why

It's similar to asking how Germany benefited from Nazi rule

Germany benefitted a lot from Nazi rule. An economic depression was ended, the economy boomed, full employment was reached, infrastructure such as motorways were massively improved, and national pride was restored after years of despair.

I misread your post. I thought you said eight year old daughter. Which is why I said clueless teacher. Year 8 is still a bit young to grasp this IMHO.

I think it is fair to say that colonialism is wrong. It’s not nuanced. It’s morally wrong. The end.

It is a compex and emotive subject but I would have thought one of the aims is develop critical thinking to back up emotions or instinctive reactions. Topics such as apartheid and the Victorian workhouse were mentioned up thread. While both were odious studying their reasons for establishment would show that their were rational political reasons for them in their own terms. But then the question is is that the kind of society you would want to live in? and why?

Similiary, I have seen people dismissing any opposition to the British Universal Suffragettes) Suffrage movement as just mean and irrational whereas there were political reasons that were rational within the society of the time.

I am a working class woman but can still think about things. A year 8 child is just beginning and I hope the professional historian parent is emphasising that gaining knowledge and insight doesn't have any fixed end point when she will know the answer.

I don't get the issue tbh. I come from a country that was colonised and even though it's a horrible part of our history and we still hate the government of the country that colonised us, we can still recognise that there were some benefits.

It doesn't mean we think it was a good thing or we're glad we were colonised, but of course it had some benefits.

It is only white people who rub their hands in anguish over this kind of question.

Infrastructure

You seemed to suggest that debating both sides of Empire was the same as debating both sides of murder....

I'm Australian. The British were responsible for genocide here. And that's just one country. The only difference with murder is that of scale. I mean, how do you think of the empire in Britain? Do you not think of it as a crime?

My family benefits from fine engineering of Volkswagen cars.

OP, I sorry but I think this is totally too much for an 8 yr old. A balanced argument??? At 8 yrs of age!!
I can't get past the first question, not to mind the analysis (bear in mind I m not British so don't know if 8 yr olds are educated on British history regarding colonies as such a young age) She 8, not 18. Yes, google will provide an answer which her follow students will automatically copy.

I’m genuinely baffled how people cannot see why the way the question has been put is inappropriate and offensive. A number of posters have argued that there are benefits to all sorts of awful things. Can you not understand how inappropriate it is to take this “intellectually pure” (for want of a better term) approach to things that are just so fundamentally wrong on the most basic, human level?

To follow up on an analogy another poster used: I grew up with domestic violence and yes, it has made me a very strong person - but to even use the terminology of a benefit here is totally bizarre. When one would happily forego the benefit if it means you wouldn’t have had the detriment, it is nonsensical to frame any debate about the issue in question in terms of assessing benefits and detriments. Critically analyse impacts, sure - but to frame the issue from the outset as benefit/detriment is repugnant.