Chacko means that the family had been indoctrinated to be subservient to the British and lost the connection to the history and legacies of their own ancestors. Describing them as a “family of Anglophiles” (pg. 51), Chacko uses the definitions in the Readers Digest encyclopedia to show the children how Pappachi had turned his back on his culture and embraced the hierarchical system that placed the British above the Indians. It is clear that the legacy of postcolonialism is still strong in India as Chacko describes a “war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves” (pg. 52). This internal war that he speaks of is the practice of cultural indoctrination and all of the assumed prejudices and normalizations that accompany it. Anglophiles struggled with finding their cultural identity and it becomes clear that the internalized self-hatred they have for Indians leaves them without a sense of history. They lock themselves out of their traditional Indian culture and roots yet at the same time are locked out of ever really being part of British culture by the same system that gave them cause to hate themselves in the first place. I interpret the War of Dreams that Chacko speaks of to mean the belittlement of any accomplishments that an Indian might make in the eyes of the British and the Anglophiles. A person could be the most accomplished scholar, greatest inventor, or creator of wealth and yet their success will not mean much because they are still Indian. The dreams of the oppressors end up becoming the dreams of the oppressed through indoctrination yet the oppressed have virtually no shot of attaining these goals. Chacko explains to the children that through the perspective of the Earth Woman that “we, my dears, are everything we are and ever will be are just a twinkle in her eye” (pg. 53) to show them the vastness of history on Earth and how the true history of humanity is as one.
An enduring legacy of colonialism that has become an important issue recently in India has been the cultural preference for fair skin. In a Times of India article linked below Anup Dhir, a plastic surgeon, suggests the phenomenon is influenced by the years of British rule: "Indians are usually obsessed with fair skin as they acquired this legacy from the British era. As our rulers were fair skinned, we also run after fair complexion." Under colonial rule many Indians internalized the idea that British equals better and began to associate whiteness with beauty. Indians with dark skin face discrimination and advertisements like the image above promise to not only whiten skin but to markedly improve lives as a result of having a lighter pigment. The fact that this cultural bias persists is a testament to the effects that colonialism continue to have on the culture of the oppressed generations after colonial rule officially ended.
No comments:
Post a Comment