Essay His 103: the Asian World Notes

Words: 1650
Pages: 7

1) Nationalism, socialism, and religion have all played a major role in anti-colonial struggles and post-colonial constructions in India and Southeast Asia. Which of these three ideologies do you think was most effective for colonized peoples and why?

I. Nationalism was most effective for the colonized peoples of India and South East Asia a. Both socialism and Nationalism worked together to fight against imperial rule. Nationalism brought the people of India and Southeast Asia together while Socialism went against Western ideals. b. Socialism was more effective in South East Asia, it went fully against Western colonists beliefs of capitalism and democracy. Nationalism was most effective in India to fight against
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Is it authentic? Or contrived? Is there such a thing as ethnic or cultural “authenticity”?

1. In India and South East Asia, colonial knowledge was produced by the West as a means to define who the people of the regions were. a. When they first came to India, they fell in love with the culture that was before them. i. They loved the extravagance of the culture including their art, architecture, and freedom of expression. Instead of taking over India right away, they assimilated with the culture and imposed their own beliefs on the Indians. The British immediately wanted to know the political and cultural history of India, but Indians never kept record of it, or thought of it as important. The Indians didn’t realize that their culture was so extravagant. From that point on, the British made it their goal to try and analyze, discover and catalogue India. b. Colonial knowledge was produced and controlled by the British.

2. The way that colonial knowledge was produced was through the eyes and terminology of the British. c. They thought that everything in India had a British or European equivalent which was not true. They wanted to find comparable attributes of both cultures but in many cases, there were no similarities or comparisons to be made. The British created the knowledge in India. They did this by labeling, writing and sketching about India. This only produced a history from the view point of the British.