Saturday, March 12, 2016

COST OF COLONIALISM: BLOWING IN THE WIND

Hello World,

I had noticed something very interesting when I visited the Andamans in 2012. This year, I visited Andamans again and visited the same spot to cover the experience. I am referring to to something I noticed in Ross Island, a small island visible from Port Blair, the current capital of Andaman & Nicobar islands. Ross Island was the first British headquarters set up in the archipelago and this island was even invaded by the Japanese. 

My experience has to do with the pre-independence colonial timeline when India was under the British rule.

We need to look at what I saw to get started:
















Long story short, these are the people whose graves have been captured in the pictures above:

  1. Benjamin Lewarn A.B., Died at the age of: 25 years and 6 months
  2. Anne Elizabeth of Lahert, Died at the age of: 21 years, 3 months and 10 days
  3. W.H. Eales, Born at Kingston, near Brixham Devonshire, Died at the age of: 38 years, 5 months and 29 days
  4. Benjamin Kelton, Died at the age of: 35 years
  5. James John Elder, Born at Liverpool, Lancashire, Age at the time of death: Unknown, 
  6. James Wyness Esq., Died at the age of: 38 years
  7. John. W. Wood, Died at the age of: Unknown [probably 29 or 29]
  8. Name: Unknown, Died at the age of: 23 years and 27 days
  9. William Collins, Died at the age of: 28 years
  10. Samuel Smith [Pensioner], Died at the age of: 67 years
  11. John Edwards, Died at the age of: 28 years
  12. Benjamin Welton, Died at the age of: 35 years
  13. Lawrence [Infant son of Lawrence and Jessie Jemima Carthy], Died at the age of: 22 hours

These are some of the graves at the cemetery on Ross Island. 

With 22 hours and 67 years as clear outliers, the age at the time of death is largely between 21 years and 38 years. 

Young men and women are lying under the ground in a lonely Island in the Bay of Bengal. All because someone decided to colonise India. I have no idea if the family of these people knew about their death. I wonder if someone, many generations later now, have ever visited Ross Island to see their grave. May be because most of these individuals died at a very young age, they never had the opportunity to bring their next generation into this world. 

This is just the minuscule part of the human capital invested by the then British administration in the effort to colonise India. Based on the very little I understand, the then British administration, used its taxpayers money to recruit and deploy their own sons and daughters on a land very far away, only to leave them dead under the ground, when it realised the complexity in keeping country under its control by force. 

Since 1644, when the first British fortress [Fort St. George] was founded in Chennai, the administration did not or rather was not willing to realise the infeasibility of a never-ending colonisation of a sovereign state. My interpretation is therefore directed towards the assumption that the then British administration never really cared about its own citizens or at least not up to the level of what might constitute anything related to fairness.

So the question, we as the current survivors of the race called mankind need to answer is, did all this investment of human capital really benefit those who engaged in colonialism? You consciously paid for the spices, minerals, opium and agricultural resources with your sons and daughters, some of whom are under the ground of this sovereign state to this day, rather dissolved or decomposed, but under the ground in a foreign land anyways.

The dark comedy is, of those who came to India for spices, hardly ever use them in their cuisines. Cinnamon made it to coffee, cardamom and saffron made it to some foods. The other agri resources were mostly consumed for the purpose of further colonisation. I am unaware but very skeptical of colonial wheat and rice feeding the citizens of the colonial state. Even if that were to be a fact, was it all worth the sons and daughters you left buried under foreign lands, which now are sovereign states similar to yours????????

Next time we draft random men, women and transgenders to be deployed on foreign lands for military operations, we as the race called mankind, will have to think a few hundred times to assess the benefit we will realise by sacrificing the humans for the sake of monopolised control over resources in foreign lands [includes democracy and fundamental rights]. 

Desperate times calls for desperate measures and desperate measures require high value investments. It is impossible to avoid it but we can definitely act based on the fair assessment of long-term impact on mankind rather than deciding on the short term diplomatic relations and control over alleged ‘aggressors’ for the sake of regional security that is then bartered for oil or something much more trivial than something nothing can replace: human life.


As for an answer to these questions, all I recall are Bob Dylan's words: “….the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.” 


Best Regards,


3 comments:

  1. I have written a poem which is a part of my poetry collection under publication


    For Benjamin Lewarn AB…

    O Benjamin Lewarn AB of Ross !
    Your grave has gathered a bit of moss
    Allow me to clean and speak to me
    The story that is buried with thee.

    Of the British Indian Naval Brigade
    In January of eighteen sixty four
    Your shipmates laid you to eternal rest
    Aged just twenty five and a little more.

    Far from the home in search of gold
    Your youth to empire builders you sold
    And now lying in ruins of yesteryears
    Let us talk and hear each other.

    Now that your tombstone is cleaner
    Allow me to peep in your past you dear
    Through the haze appears a face
    Curly locks with youthful grace.

    Your eyes look the scottish blue
    Must be missing the wild bluebells
    The meadows green and misty slopes
    And the sound of distant church bells.





    Promise I will goggle your name
    Someone may have a photo in frame
    May be some memory bells will ring
    And a bluebell song someone will sing.


    Sorry you Benjamin my old friend
    For you no more bells ring
    But I will come and meet you again
    And a bluebell song I will sing …

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have written a poem which is a part of my poetry collection under publication


    For Benjamin Lewarn AB…

    O Benjamin Lewarn AB of Ross !
    Your grave has gathered a bit of moss
    Allow me to clean and speak to me
    The story that is buried with thee.

    Of the British Indian Naval Brigade
    In January of eighteen sixty four
    Your shipmates laid you to eternal rest
    Aged just twenty five and a little more.

    Far from the home in search of gold
    Your youth to empire builders you sold
    And now lying in ruins of yesteryears
    Let us talk and hear each other.

    Now that your tombstone is cleaner
    Allow me to peep in your past you dear
    Through the haze appears a face
    Curly locks with youthful grace.

    Your eyes look the scottish blue
    Must be missing the wild bluebells
    The meadows green and misty slopes
    And the sound of distant church bells.





    Promise I will goggle your name
    Someone may have a photo in frame
    May be some memory bells will ring
    And a bluebell song someone will sing.


    Sorry you Benjamin my old friend
    For you no more bells ring
    But I will come and meet you again
    And a bluebell song I will sing …

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your story... but still it's unfinished.. there are so many tragedies happened.. everyone knows when he died but no one knows how he dies... what he felt when he have to meet with a Indian girl and fell for her how they use to meet near to the lighthouse... how they killed that girl and through her deadbody to the sea just to set example of British rule... and then how they send him and killed him and make like nothing happen at all.. that Island is still mourning for the loss.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the comment!!! Have a good one!!!!