Legacy of Oppression

True progress requires truly visionary leadership.

Though Pakistan and India have achieved independence, the legacy of the British colonial era continues to this day. The colonial masters followed the policy of divide and rule. The bureaucracy was structured in such a way that it would suppress the masses; they also loved luxurious lifestyles at the expense of the colonised people exploitation of all sorts was their favourite pastime so that they could continue their unchallenged hegemony. This legacy was inherited by the ruling elite of India and Pakistan from their colonial masters and is a source of the poor socio-economic growth of the region.

The British Raj devised everything to sustain its rule in the subcontinent. It divided the people on the basis of their faith, social status, etc. Those seeds of discord continue to bleed the subcontinent with more hatred than ever before. The unsettled issue of Kashmir, which is the unfinished agenda of the partition of the subcontinent according to the UN Security Council Resolutions, is a legacy of the British Raj. There are many more such issues.

It was a calculated move to keep the people of the region engaged in a state of perpetual conflict, based on the notion “if they will not be allowed to rule, people should not live in peace”. The tendency to acquire more and more territory by means of force is being practised by the BJP-led Modi regime, disregarding bilateral agreements such as the Simla Agreement of 1972, the para 1 (ii) of which says, “…. pending the final settlement of any of the problems between the two countries, neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation….”. This is the legacy of the British Raj through which they forcibly annexed territories of the weak nations or wherever they deemed necessary. The Indian government has all through trampled on the will of the people of Kashmir. Bilateral agreements, the Lahore Declaration of 1999 and the resolutions of the Security Council were thrown into the dustbin of history. While the Congress Party of India succeeded in dismembering Pakistan and creating Bangladesh, the BJP has abrogated India’s own constitution and unilaterally merged the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir into its union territory.

British inherited institutions have always flourished in the subcontinent as they were modeled on the concept of suppression of the masses. The colonisers shaped the bureaucratic structure to suppress the people rather than to render service to them. They did this so that in case an uprising erupted, the bureaucracy could use violent tactics to silence the agitators. It is for this reason that use of force became an inherent tool for the bureaucracy in Pakistan even after partition. Archaic and brutal tactics used by police for extracting confessions from suspects have been handed down by the colonial masters. In a recent case, Salahuddin, who mocked the CCTV camera while stealing from an ATM in Faisalabad, was picked up by law enfocement agencies from Rahim Yar Khan. Their brutal torture caused the death of this mentally challenged person. Through the whole process, the police performed the job of complainant, prosecutor and judge.