"Kipling may have been Poet to the Empire and its best apologist (or worst?). But having spent most of his life in Her Majesty’s Service in the Indian Sub-continent as a soldier and journalist, Kipling knew the redlines that were not to be crossed -- ever.
"It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the
Late deceased;
And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East "
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<span><span>The "resistance".... just fighting to expel the occupiers from their homeland.
ReplyDeleteA 14-year-old boy in the tribal region of Bajaur, in north-west Pakistan, says he was detained by Taliban forces who tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. The boy is now in army hands.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8357011.stm</span></span>
Unbeknownst to many, including many Muslims, soldiers from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent enlisted in huge numbers in the armies of their colonial masters to fight to end the Nazi onslaught. From 15-year-old Indian boy-soldiers fighting in Italy to Noor Inayat Khan, a female spy sent by the British into German-occupied France, Muslims made an immense contribution to the Allied war effort.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/news/canada/remembranceday/article/723966--opinion-remembering-our-common-humanity
People in South Asia remember how the British Indian Army defeated Hitler and Tojo (Japan in WWII.) If not for Indians, Russians and Americans would be speaking German and Japanese.
ReplyDelete"Officers must not shoot peacocks; if they do the Belooches will shoot officers." General orders of Sir Charles Napier (Governor of Sind) 1844.
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