Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tragomaskhalos 1740 days ago
The intention was there - according to Pakenham's "The Scramble for Africa" the idea was that prior to independence you educate a generation of civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines. I'd argue this worked well in India, largely though because Indians were already running the country in most important particulars. In Africa less so because independence movements gained unstoppable momentum which preempted such planning, plus many of those countries had been colonies for decades rather than centuries.
2 comments
throwawaysea 1740 days ago
> civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines

While this may mean structural continuity, I can’t help but feel this is also a bad outcome - it’s just a continuation of imperialist force/cultural projection.

link
nine_k 1740 days ago
I won't say that a working electoral / parliamentary / judicial system, civil engineering, medicine, etc left intact is a bad outcome. It's a much better outcome than a civil war.

With some exceptions, there were no comparable systems in native cultures; those that existed (some definitely did) often were not capable to keep together a country, even if they worked well on tribal level, or were scalable but belligerent by design.

I also don't think that cultural projection, to a degree, is not a bad thing. It happens constantly, and allows for cultural cross-pollination. It is, of course, best done in peaceful ways.

link
AmericanChopper 1740 days ago
> the idea was that prior to independence you educate a generation of civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines. I'd argue this worked well in India…

I certainly wouldn’t draw that conclusion. Immediately after the British left Nehru adopted 5 year plans based on the soviet model. Nehru and Stalin didn’t get along because he was still too Britain-friendly for Stalin, but India and The USSR developed very close relations within a very short period of time.

Some elements of India’s governance structure were distinctively non-Soviet, like having a multiparty democracy. But if you look at the way the country was run, it was done in the style of soviet central planning, most certainly not along British lines.

link