Awaken Bharata by David Frawley

Author:David Frawley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789388271028
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

THE NEW MASKS OF COLONIALISM

Colonialism did not end after World War II when the West gave up its colonies. It merely changed to a subtler form. The expansion of Western culture has continued at an accelerated rate along with the decline of non-Western civilizations and their religion, art, literature and customs, including in the case of India.

This new colonialism has taken on several new faces or masks. These include a liberal image of democracy, internationalism, free trade and humanitarianism, which often conceal other motivations. In the name of modernization and globalization the West pretends to be uplifting people it may be actually exploiting and whose culture it is slowly eliminating. This is not fundamentally different than the aims of colonialism originally, which vaunted itself as the bringer of civilization to the uncivilized world, into which the venerable ancient civilizations of India and China were also included.

The Colonial Era

In the colonial era, colonial expansion worked through military, economic, and religious methods. Military force was the primary and initial method, with European armies invading and conquering, usually by the force of superior arms, other countries and people who had committed no real aggression against them. This was often little more than organized banditry, stealing the gold, jewels, and other treasures of these different lands. Economic exploitation went hand in hand with the military conquest, following in its footsteps, stooping so low in its methods to get involved with the drug and slave trades, like the British Opium wars with China and running the opium trade in India. After all, it was the riches of these countries, whether imaginary or real, like the gold in America that spurned on the explorers and the armies and offered them the promise of great rewards. Or the land itself became the gift for new settlers, as in the case of the vast American continent and its smaller group of native inhabitants.

Economic exploitation gradually moved from outright robbery after the riches of the country were already taken, to dominating the natural resources and controlling the economies of these lands for long term gains, like the British rule in India. Eventually even the articles of daily life in these regions were controlled for profit rendering the people of these nations dependent upon foreign rule for their very livelihood. With the British in India, it resulted in a number of famines in which millions of Indians died, yet there was no remorse on the part of the British or even any acknowledgement that these occurred.

Religion provided the needed moral justification for this cruel colonial plunder. After all, heathens really don’t have to be treated like human beings. Christianity was based upon an idea, which few ever questioned, that Christianity was the only true religion. All other religions had to be eliminated to save the souls of mankind. Other religions, including compassionate systems like Buddhism or sublime philosophies like Vedanta, were little more than idolatry and superstition to be swept aside in the noble Christian pursuit of salvation. Such missionaries

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