Impact of Colonialism

Colonialism under British Government has a remarkable history that most of us studied in our formal education at school, college and university level. It is needless to say that England was quite an advanced country during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. They had settled their colonies in Asia, Africa as well as many other parts of the world. Being the advance nation British, had always had the intention to rule their colonized country from every aspect of life.

During the phase when India was fully controlled by British, mainly in 19^th and 20^th century our nation saw many changes in our prevailing social as well as educational system. It is true that the primary intention of British Government was to extract as much wealth as possible from their colonies but, besides, exploitation they had also played an important role for the social development of every colony they ruled.

Before the British took over India; there were many established ill practices in our society which were not only irrational but also harmful for the civilization.  Girls were in a miserable condition, they were regarded as a burden to a family and all these entrenched unhealthy believes in the mind of people, caused the hindrance in the way of development. When our society was struggling to establish peace and prosperity, the arrival of British in Indian put things at ease and guided our society towards the right direction.

It was not like that alone British Government brought about the rational thought in the mind of Indians but the relentless efforts of people like Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and others paved the way to evolvement. Besides Asia, British also had their colony in Africa, where they also played a major role for the development of the continent.

Initially, it may be felt that British Government had all their colonial policies to perpetuate their loot from underdeveloped nations, and there are scholars who support this statement blindly. However, if we consider the reformation that they had brought in the cultural perspective in India by banning rituals like Satidaha Pratha(Sati), where women were burnt alive with their dead husband and many other unscientific and cruel rituals of our society; the picture would appear quite opposite to us. It is needless to say that without the support of British Government such reformation would have remained a far cry for us. Not only in India, but also in Africa they had amended as well as reformed many baseless rituals which not only begot pain and agony for humans but also pushed the civilization to dark corner. One of such unscientific rituals was ‘Circumcision’. It caused great pain to girls while following the ritual.

With their arrival in Africa, the British Government found that the African society is lacking far behind from the Europeans. They felt it is utterly important to introduce cultural rectification in countries like Nigeria, Ghana etc.  However, despite all the fact that African nations were lacking far behind than the developed countries, it is also true that Africans were rich on their own terms and they had their own culture to feel proud and protective about. Although in most of the cases it didn’t help them to progress, and their education system was also not up to the mark. They practiced folk literature as there were no opportunity to write their thoughts nor the concept was that familiar to them yet. Regardless, of all its natural resources and cultural milieu the condition of pre-colonial Africa was not that well in terms of standard of living and other sides of social life.

The British government, mainly the missionaries made an endeavour to establish English language in education and likewise, spread Christianity among the Africans at the very first step to reform the condition. In both cases British had to face great resilience from Africans, as they were rigid about their own culture, nonetheless with time things changed and people of Africa accepted the policy of British.

The education system that long ago British instilled in their colonies, mainly English language, is mostly followed till date. Globalization is one of the fundamental outcomes of English language which British spread all across the world back then in nineteenth and twentieth century. Colonialism might be a matter of great criticism but it too has some positive sides which had helped the third world countries to progress. British could envisage that there will come a day when the world needs to come under an umbrella to take the progress of civilization further and with that vision they took initiatives many hundred years ago.

Yet, there is no reason to also feel that British made all such attempts to develop their colonies for the sake of humanism. During the phase of capitalism they needed extended market which was untouched by other powerful countries and with that motive they explored the underdeveloped nations. Further, for their own benefit they brought necessary changes in the education, social and other dimensions of lives of their colonies. Above all it can be said that with whatever intention they had behind bringing about reformation in their colonies, it ultimately turned out to be a blessing  for the third world countries.