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Some time ago, responding to the avant Brit socialist line that its Colonial period was unforgivably sinful, I wrote a post on Britain's Colonial past, pointing out:
British Colonialism was Britain's gift to the world. A sizable chunk, if not the majority of the most prosperous and free countries in the world today have emerged from Britain's colonial empire . . . Indeed, as I pointed out in a post below, the U.S. not only adopted most of Britain's legal, governmental and bureaucratic systems, but the Bill of Rights itself is in large measure an amalgam of the rights of British Protestants at the time of our nation's founding. Our debt to Britain is deep and lasting. . . .
The Brits . . . brought a host of benefits to the nations they colonized, from education to the English language, from trade to capitalism, from government bureaucracy and democracy to the British legal system. . . .
David Cameron, Britain's new PM is now preparing to visit India, once the jewel of Britain's colonial possessions, and announced that he is doing so "with a spirit of humility." Nirpal Dhaliwal, the son of Indian immigrants to Britain, writing in the Daily Mail, has pointed out that Cameron does not need to be apologetic to India, as the gifts of Britain from the Colonial Period now form the basis for India's rapid growth and evolution:
Many have interpreted David Cameron's statement that he is visiting India in a 'spirit of humility' as a shame-faced apology for Britain's imperial rule there. But Indians require no apology for Empire and seek none, and nor do Britons need to feel especially guilty for it.
India is the world's second-largest growing economy, producing more English-speaking graduates than the rest of the world combined.
The use of English is the most enduring and profitable legacy of the Raj; without it, the boom in Indian call-centre and software industries could not have happened. . . .
Just as Empire opened the doors of modernity to India, a good relationship between Britain and India will be a mark of how prominent both countries are in the modern world.
All that is best about India - its tolerance, freedom and engagement with the world - has flourished due to the structures and ideas it inherited from British rule.
Despite the often callous profiteering of Empire, the modern Indian state simply would not exist without it. . . .
The attitudes of British intelligentsia towards the Colonial period is deeply distorted by the lens of Marxism and multiculturalism. The reality is that the British Colonial period has proven one of history's most positive influences.
