The Psychology Of Colonialism By Prof. Ashis Nandy

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Recommended: Introduction to colonialism

Prof. Ashis Nandy is a social theorist and critic, renowned for his use of clinical psychology in critiquing Colonialism, Development, Hindutva, Nuclearism, Cosmopolitanism as well as historically profiling the Indian Cinema and Cricket.
His accolades include the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (2007), a feature on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll of the Foreign Policy magazine (2008), Senior Honorary Fellowship and Directorship of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (New Delhi), the National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Chairpersonship of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures.
Born in a Bengali Christian family in 1937, Nandy was 10 when the British partitioned British India into India and Pakistan. Living in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Nandy witnessed and experienced the atrocities and the violence of the partition up close and personal. His writings are deeply …show more content…

The way British, who initially had a mere intention to develop trade and commerce, developed instruments of domination is explained.
The trajectory of colonisation set by the book states that initially there used to be a mutual respect for each other’s systems and institutions (cultural distinctness) between the British and the natives. It was with the advent of the middle class British and the so called “new generation” of colonizers that colonisation began intervening with the political and cultural aspects of the colonized lives.
This chapter also depicts the defence of acting as a superior/adult to train a recessive race and train them to be as civilised as themselves, used by the British to justify their cultural imposition. The consequence of this imposition was a desire among the Indians to be more like their

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