
Murder in Small-Town India - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/world/asia/murder-small-town-india.html
======
rayiner
> Over the past decade, in Russia and then India, I have been asked versions
> of this question hundreds of times: Who are you to come here and tell us
> what is wrong with our system? And it’s true, the whole enterprise of
> foreign correspondence has a whiff of colonialism.

I find the author's self-consciousness patronizing. India is full of people
fighting this sort of thing in the country's backwaters, who appreciate the
help from any source. (I don't imagine Americans find it colonialist when the
Economist writes about the problems with _our_ justice system:
[https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21654619-how-make-
ame...](https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21654619-how-make-americas-
penal-system-less-punitive-and-more-effective-jailhouse-nation)).

~~~
chimeracoder
> I don't imagine Americans find it colonialist when the Economist writes
> about the problems with our justice system

It's disingenuous to critique a fundamentally postcolonial argument (which is
what the cited quotation represents) by referencing the US and its erstwhile
status as a colony of England. The US is one of the three superpowers of the
world, one of the wealthiest countries of the world, and itself an imperial
power, which means that under postcolonial thought, it's more analogous to
English media critiquing France or Portugal. Under this same lens, that's a
completely different balance (or imbalance) of power than when the US
critiques India (or any other developing nation that was decolonized in the
mid-20th century, of which there are a lot).

You don't have to agree with the end conclusion, but if you want to critique
it, you need to engage with it as a school of thought and either address the
problem using that framework or find a compelling reason to deconstruct the
framework.

~~~
rayiner
> a compelling reason to deconstruct the framework.

Fine. As someone from an adjacent former British colony, I find much of the
Western hand-wringing about colonialism in India to be misguided and
presumptuous. Much postcolonial thinking is the cultural equivalent of "Not
Invented Here" syndrome. Modern Indians looking to integrate into the
developed world find this sort of thing as abhorrent as western onlookers do.
They want to end these practices, they don't mind being judged by the
standards of the developed world, and they don't mind the impetus created by
international scrutiny of these injustices.

To make it more concrete: there is an activist organization somewhere in India
that is thrilled to see coverage of this issue. In the New York Times of all
places!

~~~
chimeracoder
> Much postcolonial thinking is the cultural equivalent of "Not Invented Here"
> syndrome.

This is very much not true, and I'd invite you to read some postcolonial
theory to understand why, because those primary sources explain it in more
detail than I can summarize here.

The remainder of your post after that line is factually true, and
postcolonialists wouldn't even disagree with it necessarily, but that
particular claim is not accurate.

~~~
rayiner
I don't think it's controversial to say that postcolonialism rejects the
universality of European enlightenment values. That is, in my view, a mode of
"Not Invented Here" thinking. Relevant:
[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/how-does-the-subaltern-
sp...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/how-does-the-subaltern-speak).

> There has been no really prominent body of thought associated with the Left
> in the last hundred and fifty years or so that has insisted on denying the
> scientific ethos and the applicability of categories coming out of the
> liberal enlightenment and the radical enlightenment — categories like
> capital, democracy, liberalism, rationality, and objectivity. There have
> been philosophers who have criticized these orientations, but they’ve rarely
> achieved any significant traction on the Left. Postcolonial theorists are
> the first to do so.

~~~
chimeracoder
Okay, now I understand the issue. It looks like you're reading a description
of postcolonialism written by someone who's explicitly opposed to the school
of thought and treating that as a primary reference on the tenets of the
philosophy itself.

If actually read the original essay with that title ("Can the Subaltern
Speak?), you might see that Chibber's criticism is completely off-base, to the
point of misrepresenting even objective facts about the principles of
postcolonialism.

------
weeksie
Pretty much completely jives with my feeling for the place after spending a
couple months traveling through it.

------
fellellor
Life is very difficult here. And no one thinks of themselves as a villain.
Villains especially.

