Thiong'o Tharoor and Films on Colonial History

 Thinking Activity

Hello Readers!

     Welcome to my blog, here i would like to write my understanding in Shashi Tharoor's book An Era of Darkness and some critique on both the films with reference to postcolonial insights. and also some summarise view points on Ngugi Wa Thiong's views in 'Introdution: Towards the Universal Language of Struggle' - from 'Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature'.

 # Shashi Tharoor

     Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician, writer and former international diplomat who has been serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He was formerly Under- Secretary General of the United Nations and contested for the post of Secretary-General in 2006.

# Shashi tharoor and Dark Era of Inglorious Empire:

  Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, first published in India as An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, is a work of non-fiction by Shashi Tharoor, an Indian politician and diplomat, on the effects of British colonialism on India. The book has won widespread acclaim and won Tharoor the 2019 Sahitya Akademi Award and the 2017 Ramnath Goenka in Journalism Award. 

   If we discuss the key argument of this book then in this book, there are several things that make the book extraordinary. For one, it is not constructed as a chronological account of imperialism as it unfolded in India. Instead, its sections are crafted around specific themes - the utter amorality of the East Indian Company in its conduct in India, and how the rule by the first-ever MNC completely haemorrhaged Indian Wealth, ruined indigenous knowhow and increased rural poverty; the myth of the British crafting political unity and creating the idea of India as it were; the peculiar construct of British-Indian laws. 

     There is another point is that in An Era of Darkness renders yeoman's service to the entire subject of India's colonial encounters by comprehensively rubbishing most of the arguments paraded in favour of the British Raj by diverse quarters and putting them down. 

   Finally - and most important - Tharoor has provided a context to understanding many of the troubles that underpin discourse in contemporary India, by providing an unflinching account of "divide et imperative", the policy of divide and rule that was so successfully implemented by the British in India in furtherance of the colonial project. 

# Some critical points of both the films with reference to postcolonial insights:

The Black Prince 

      It's a 2017 international historical drama film directed by Kavi Raz and featuring the acting debut of Satinder Sartaaj. It tells the story of Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire and the Punjab area, and his relationship with Queen Victoria.

The story revolves around the young prince as he attempts both to regain his throne and reconcile himself with the two cultures of his Indian birth and British education. 

Victoria & Abdul 

is a 2017 British biographical drama film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Lee Hall. The film is based on the book of same name by Shrabani Basu, about the real-life relationship between Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her Indian Muslim servant Abdul Karim. It stars Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Michael Gambon, Eddie Izzard, Tim Pigott-Smith and Adeel Akhtar.

# Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's views in 'Introduction: Towards The Universal Language of struggle' - from 'Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature'. 

      

      The language of African literature cnnot be discussed meaningfully outside the context of those social forces which have made it both an issue demanding our attention and a problem calling for a resolution.

     In other words, imperialism continues to control the economy, politics, and cultures of Africa. Usher a new era of true communal self-regulation and self-determination. The choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people's definition of themselves in relation to their natural and social envionment.

  Language carries culture, and culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world. Language is thus insepareble from ourselves as a community of human being with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world.