The Pathology of Hate India

IRELAND AND INDIA have much in common. Both suffered at the hands of British colonialism. Ireland was Britain’s first colony and the first to win independence in 1922, a full quarter century before India became free.

Both Ireland and India were devastated by famines under British colonial rule. India recorded multiple famines between the 1760s and 1940s, culminating in the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 that killed over three million people. There hasn’t been a famine in India after Independence.

Colonial Ireland was the victim of the Irish Potato Famine that killed one million Irish people between 1845 and 1852—nearly one-eighth of Ireland’s population of 8.5 million then.

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum has catalogued the horror that led to the Irish famine under British colonial rule. India has not built a similar museum to catalogue the several famines that wiped out tens of millions of Indians in British-ruled India. The Irish museum’s archive of the Potato Famine underscores why India must create a historical record of famines in colonial India. Some of the similarities with colonial Ireland are striking.

According to Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, “Throughout the entire period of the Famine, Ireland was exporting enormous quantities of food to England. In Ireland Before and After the Famine, Cormac Ó Gráda points out, ‘Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. Up to 75 per cent of Irish soil was devoted to wheat, oats, barley and other crops that were grown for export and shipped abroad while the Irish people starved.’

“Cecil Woodham-Smith, noted scholar and author, wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 that ‘…no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries [England and Ireland] as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation’.”

The colonial conquest of Ireland by Britain was ruthlessly exploitative. Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum minces no words: “During the 16th and 17th centuries, England killed tens of thousands of Irish, and drove hundreds of thousands more off their land in Northeastern Ireland [Ulster]. The land taken from Irish- Catholics in Ulster was offered to Protestants from Scotland and England to entice them to relocate to Ireland. This policy created a sizeable group of Protestant settlers in Northern Ireland loyal to the British government.”

Ever since it won independence from Britain over a century ago, Ireland has been a great friend of India. Indian businesses have flourished in Ireland. Membership of the European Union (EU) has been a boon for Ireland. Few in India are aware that Ireland today has a per capita income ($1,03,500) that is double Britain’s ($52,262).

Ireland’s capital Dublin is a lively, cosmopolitan city with a thriving Indian community. The recent hate attacks on people of Indian origin are therefore entirely out of character and have shocked both countries. The attacks have targeted both Indian tourists and Indian-Irish citizens. Disturbingly, the physical assaults have been carried out by Irish teenagers, some as young as 13.

The attacks prompted Ireland’s ambassador to India, Kevin Kelly, to write an op-ed in a leading Indian daily, condemning the attacks and outlining the steps Irish police are taking to stop such assaults. Arresting the attackers is tricky since they are juveniles and protected by law.

Attacks against Indians have multiplied over the past few months, especially in the US, Australia and Europe. In Melbourne last month, 33-year-old Saurabh Anand was assaulted with a machete by a group of Australian teenagers. The assault nearly severed his hand.

Hate against India and Indians has been normalised by the Trump administration’s MAGA wing which is openly racist. India’s rise as a global power grates on MAGA nerves. Great Power status is reserved, they believe, for countries of European descent. China is the exception. India is not.

India’s defiance of the US-led West on Russian oil has fuelled the anger against ‘upstart’ India. What began as abuse on social media has infected the narrative of even senior members of the Trump administration.

The US, a 249-year-old nation, has yet to come to terms with India, a 5,000-year-old civilisation.

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