Scribd
Upload
243 views

Colonialism and Post Colonialism

Uploaded by

Aisha Rahat
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
243 views

Colonialism and Post Colonialism

Uploaded by

Aisha Rahat
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Colonialism and post colonialism – concepts

Colonialism refers to the practice when countries took partial/complete control


over another country, brought in its own people and exploited the country’s
resources and citizens for its own economic prosperity.

Exploitation could be done through trade, politics, and religious conversion.

British came and exploited people of India. They wanted to make money out of
resources of India. When British colonialism began to fade away, Indians thought
they would be free. However, colonialism did not end. The whites exerted power
and authority in different forms. This kind of colonialism is more harmful than the
previous kind of colonialism.

Postcolonialism provides a framework to review the colonial legacy, investigate


and interrogate its ideology and how these ideas and policies continued to impact
and shape our world today.

Postcolonialism is an academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism,


imperialism and the impact of them on the people. The impact could be explained
through narrations, writing of the people’s trauma, experiences, consequences of
colonialism and exploitation.

Postcolonialism is a critical theory that analyses the history, culture, literature and
discourse of imperial power.

Example – Shashi Tharoor speaking of how British colonialism exploited Indians


also becomes discourse of postcolonialism.

The narrative of colonialism is how the British justified their colonialism by stating
that they wanted to bring India out of darkness and civilize the Indians.

Difference between colonial and postcolonial literature

Renaming places is also a way of ridding colonial remnants or hangover. It is a


combination of decolonization and postcolonialism. Eg- renaming Mangalore to
Mangaluru, Bangalore to Bengaluru.

Colonial literature deals with aspects within the period of colonization whereas
postcolonial literature depicts the aspects or the consequences of colonization and
1
the issues related to the period after the independence of the once colonized
countries.

Colonial literature is concerned with themes of and related to colonial period. It is


from the perspective of the British.

Eg – in Jane Eyre, St John Rivers explains his passion of going to India to teach.

Colonial literature deals with British perspective of what India is. It also deals with
the experiences of the British. It depicts the perspective to go to countries, going
on quests in search for new lands and resources, spreading their cultural and
political hegemony and religion.

It is a colonizer’s perspective of what colonization is. It includes aspects of


adventures, explorations of explorers receiving support from home country to
travel and establish colonies.

In colonial literature, they criticize the native/indigenous people and call them
primitive and uncivilized. They also talk about and glorify civilisation. They
describe how good it is to civilize the uncivilized people. They explain that it is
their purpose to civilize the uncivilized people.

Postcolonial literature is the literature that highlights social, cultural aspects after
the period of decolonization. It is a response to the impact of the colonial period.

Colonial literature is the perspective of colonisers while postcolonial literature is


the perspective of the colonized where the readers empathise with the colonized.

Postcolonial literature talks of the struggles of independence. It highlights the


impact of colonization on their livelihood, their culture and on the socio-cultural
and political aspects of the country.

It talks of the conscience of the oppressed. The colonized try to write back to the
centre. The colonisers belong in the centre and the colonized in the periphery.

The language used by the colonized for this purpose is English to speak of the
exploitation that they have done.

Even though postcolonial literature is dominantly from the perspective of the


colonized, some colonisers wrote postcolonial literature talking of ill-effects of
2
colonization. Postcolonial literature responds to the ills done by the colonisers on
the colonized.

You might also like