Leaving Kathmandu once, in line to board the plane home, I struck up a convo with an older British couple. I asked if they'd been in Nepal for aid work and she said yes. I pressed, "Doctors? Engineers?" The gentleman huffed and replied, "No no no. We were here to give them the most important thing! We taught them English!"
Not yet, but you have to be over a certain age, and studying the right combination of courses, to learn it. I only took history to age 14 (didn’t take it at GCSE, I did Geography instead) so never got taught this part of 20th-century. IIRC, ‘The Raj and the Partition’ does get covered on some versions though. (Or maybe it’s at A level?)
“Meanwhile,” in San Francisco, there was The Three I’s Society, with subjects of the former British colonies of Ireland, India, and Israel gathering quarterly to network, i.e., eat, drink, and trade war stories about our former overlords.
We're all such hypocritical assholes. It never ceases to dismay me as i continue to learn how much history I was NOT taught.
Leaving Kathmandu once, in line to board the plane home, I struck up a convo with an older British couple. I asked if they'd been in Nepal for aid work and she said yes. I pressed, "Doctors? Engineers?" The gentleman huffed and replied, "No no no. We were here to give them the most important thing! We taught them English!"
I chuckled until I saw he was dead serious.
Colonialism. Jeezus.
I did not know that story of O'Dwyers's End. What a great tale of years of monomaniacal plotting for revenge. Thank you!
Makes you wonder if the Brits haven't excised this tidbit from the 20th century history books.
Not yet, but you have to be over a certain age, and studying the right combination of courses, to learn it. I only took history to age 14 (didn’t take it at GCSE, I did Geography instead) so never got taught this part of 20th-century. IIRC, ‘The Raj and the Partition’ does get covered on some versions though. (Or maybe it’s at A level?)
“Meanwhile,” in San Francisco, there was The Three I’s Society, with subjects of the former British colonies of Ireland, India, and Israel gathering quarterly to network, i.e., eat, drink, and trade war stories about our former overlords.
Thank you for telling truths that have been hidden from so many of us.
Thank you for sharing. Even if I grew up in Bharat, (won't, can't call it India ever), because of the traitorous fake gandhi, nehru clan.