Random Musings #7: Why Brits Should be proud of Colonialism and the Empire

In its very essence, RRR polemically mocks every instance of the Empire.

Paul Simon once surmised: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.” He might as well have added memes to this list. Memes have a way of telling the truth that a thousand words can’t, which is why it wasn't shocking to see Wimbledon – the most pristine arm of Britain’s PR machinery – share a meme showing the eventual men’s finalists doing the infamous Naatu Naatu step. Now, while the world has been going gaga over RRR (and yours truly considers it one of the finest films ever made) – it has much to do with the fact that its USP is aligned with the anti-colonial trope that’s in vogue with the liberal world order – it’s still strange to see a British establishment share it.

In its very essence, RRR polemically mocks every instance of the Empire, disparaging everything about it from its EBITDA-obsessed Governor Scott to the Britisher’s inability to dance, climaxing with the Governor’s blood literally spattered on the Crown. 

Sharing a Naatu Naatu meme, therefore, was the mimetic equivalent of using a Churchill speech to promote an event on intermittent fasting.

Honestly, if I was a Britisher – the kind that thinks chip butties are a top-tier snack or someone who likes to celebrate sporting success by treating firecrackers as suppositories – I’d be rather dismayed that an event that venerates Rudyard Kipling would use a meme from a movie that flagellates and mocks the crimes of colonialism.

Given what we know about Wimbledon – and the people who run their social media account – it will be someone from a liberal elite background. I am willing to bet the person reads The Guardian to learn the full truth, which just goes to show how little self-esteem Brit elites have these days.

This group argues that Brits should apologise for “its Empire’s crimes”, even to the extent that Britain should pay reparations to former colonies, which frankly is a very dangerous exercise because that reparations list would be longer than the unresolved JIRA tickets at a tech company over a long weekend. 

All this handwringing about the Empire, especially from a British perspective, is quite preposterous.

In fact, the average Britisher should be proud of the Empire and the tenacity of their swashbuckling forefathers, who ensured that no minor issues like human rights would ever come between making a quick buck.

Just imagine what the Brits created.

A few hustlers and hucksters out of a dingy office on a tiny island with terrible weather created an Empire which not only ruled over vast swathes of the world but also felled some of the greatest dynasties – the Qing Dynasty in China and the Mughals in India – all because they wanted to buy spices and sell opium (delightfully captured in Amitav Ghosh’s superlative Ibis trilogy). It’s what the peeps today call hustle culture.

Colonialism’s defence should never be from a 2023 moral prism – morality, either way, is culturally relativist – but through a serious balance-sheet Governor Scott-like “you vs us” perspective. And, they should always employ the Sam Pitroda defence when someone questions them about the past and just shrug: Hua to hua.

Did the British (or Europeans for that matter) ask the rest of the world not to carry out an Industrial Revolution? In fact, while Europe was making great advances in science and engineering, the Mughals were making largely unusable structures of unimaginable grandeur with no real-world relevance. Did anyone ask African or Asian kings and emperors not to invade and conquer Europe? Was there a 'How to establish a colony 101' lesson that everyone else missed? To channel my inner Jared Diamond, gun powder wasn't even invented in Europe, but in Asia. It's just that the Europeans learnt how to use it better. Much like Google learnt to make its search better than AltaVista. 

All of this makes the plight of the modern Britisher even sadder when you consider how low the Albion had fallen. In modern-day Britain, while millions of pounds are spent for the upkeep of an incestuous Germanic family which was almost torn apart by a side character from Suits, schoolchildren can’t even get a midday meal without a Premier League footballer campaigning for it. It’s the only first-world nation that still eats like its being bombed from above and seems to believe that beans on toast in a suitable meal, which is even more ironic when you consider the original raison d’etre of the East India Company was to bring back spices. And even then, sometimes, they don’t have money to pay electricity bills to make toast.  

Their current Prime Minister – who isn’t even Christian but will get to pick the head of the Church of England – is a former descendent from one of their colonies, and the current size of their economy is smaller than that of their former colonies. A nation that would wage war for the right to sell opium now sees a Prime Minister – one who can at least memorise the Iliad – resign for hosting a bring-your-own-booze party at his residence.

I guess, as Indians, we should be glad we are no longer footing the bill for an incestuous Germanic family or a “neutral” media organisation like the BBC, but it’s still sad to see how far our former colonial overlords have fallen. The sun had set on the British Empire a long time ago, but it’s sad to see the dying embers of the Albion, which once ruled the world, reduced to sharing memes from movies that reiterate how much they suck.

Also read from Nonsensical Nemo:

1) Netaji’s Statue: Why it’s time to get over the romanticisation of the British Empire vis-a-vis the Third Reich

2) RRR Part 2: Why SS Rajamouli’s masterpiece triggers Hinduphobes

3) Why women vote for Modi: BBC’s masterclass in bad faith journalism and shoddily-written non-fiction