From africa to the indian subcontinent, imperialism has left a trail of damage

OVER THE PAST FOUR MONTHS I HAVE WATCHED the Israel-Gaza war with horror. And I have been struck by the growing international reaction to it all: the stark division between the Western world and the rising ‘Global South’, which increasingly no longer accepts the ‘rules-based order’ that it sees as being imposed by the West to support its hegemony. It feels like a big moment in history. Is a new world order emerging?

It has left me reflecting on the legacy of the age of colonialism. Some influential modern historians have argued that colonial powers were, on balance, a force for good, improving the lot of humanity. I disagree – and that is even before we mention the climate catastrophe, largely caused by the ravages of international capitalism.

In my job, I have travelled the world and seen for myself the aftermath of empire. From apartheid South Africa and the Congo through to Afghanistan, the Americas and the Indian subcontinent, colonialism and imperialism have left a trail of damage. And that damage is both psychological and material. The development of traditional societies has been disrupted and arrested, ancient cultural identities have been erased in a few generations. And, as current events show, we are still living with the divisions we bequeathed.

Those divisions are laid bare in a powerful documentary by Krishnendu and Madhurima Bose, Bay of Blood, about the liberation war in Bangladesh in 1971. This story is largely forgotten today outside that country, but it is part of one of the most significant events in the history of the modern world, one in which the aftermath of empire had a catastrophic impact on millions of lives: the partition of India. Or perhaps we should say the partitions of India, because they took place over the course of a century. In fact, the tensions currently besetting Kashmir suggest that they are not over yet.

The viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, initiated this process with the short-lived partition of Bengal in 1905. (The British divided East and West Bengal on religious grounds to constrain voices for independence in Bengal, which was the intellectual powerhouse of 19th-century India.) Then, in 1947, came the great partition, which was driven, too, by religion. With huge loss of life, and the forced transfers of entire populations, British India was divided into three: India, and East and West Pakistan. It beggars belief