On Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 9:34 AM S Chander <sajb1...@gmail.com> wrote: > *The Rest of Us Always Knew Churchill Was a Villain* > > His record in Britain’s former colonies more closely resembles that of a > war criminal than a defender of democracy and freedom. > By > Shashi Tharoor > <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ADxyJ9Ae4cs/shashi-tharoor> > February 16, 2019, 9:30 AM GMT+5:30 > [image: In love with his own words.] > > In love with his own words. > Photographer: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images > Shashi Tharoor, an Indian MP, is the author of 18 books, including > "Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India." > > The recent flap over Winston Churchill — with Labour politician John > McDonnell calling Britain’s most revered prime minister a “villain” and > prompting a rebuke from the latter’s grandson — will astonish many Indians. > That’s not because the label itself is a misnomer, but because McDonnell > was exercised by the death of one Welsh miner in 1910. In fact, Churchill > has the blood of millions on his hands whom the British prefer to forget. > > *“History,*” Churchill himself said, “*will judge me kindly, because I > intend to write it myself*.” He did, penning a multi-volume history of > World War II, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his self-serving > fictions. As the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies remarked of the > man many Britons credit with winning the war, "His real tyrant is the > glittering phrase, so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to > give way.” > > Awkward facts, alas, there are aplenty. As McDonnell correctly noted, > Churchill > as Home Secretary in 1910 sent battalions of police from London and ordered > them to attack striking miners in Tonypandy in South Wales; one was killed > and nearly 600 strikers and policemen were injured. It’s unlikely this > troubled his conscience much. He later assumed operational command of the > police during a siege of armed Latvian anarchists in Stepney, where he > decided to allow them to be burned to death in a house where they were > trapped. > > Shortly afterward, during the fight for Irish independence between > 1918-23, Churchill was one of the few British officials in favor of bombing > Irish protesters from the air, suggesting using “machine gun fire bombs” to > scatter them. As Secretary of State for the Colonies, he followed through > on that threat in Iraq. He ordered large-scale bombing of Mesopotamia in > 1921, with an entire village wiped out in 45 minutes. When some British > officials objected to his proposal for “the use of gas against natives,” he > found their objections “unreasonable.” In fact he argued that poison gas > was more humane than outright extermination: “The moral effect should be so > good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum.” > > This underscores the fundamental contrast in views of Churchill. In > Britain and much of the West, he’s seen as the savior of “Democracy, > Freedom, and all that is good in Western Civilization,” as one enthusiastic > correspondent put it. In fact, his record is far more mixed even there. > Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Churchill was an open admirer of > Mussolini, declaring that the Italian Fascist movement had “rendered a > service to the whole world.” Traveling to Rome in 1927 to express his > admiration for the Fascist Duce, Churchill announced that he “could not > help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor > Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm detached poise in > spite of so many burdens and dangers.” > > What Churchill was above all, though, was a committed imperialist — one > determined to preserve the British Empire not just by defeating the Nazis > but much else besides. At the start of his career, as a young cavalry > officer on the northwest frontier of India, he declared the Pashtuns > needed to recognize “the superiority of [the British] race” and that those > who resisted would “be killed without quarter.” He wrote happily about how > he and his comrades “systematically, village by village, destroyed the > houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady > trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. > Every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once.” > > In Kenya, Churchill either directed or was complicit in policies involving > the forced relocation of local people from the fertile highlands to make > way for white colonial settlers and the incarceration of over 150,000 men, > women and children in concentration camps. British authorities used rape, > castration, lit cigarettes on tender spots and electric shocks to torture > Kenyans under Churchill’s rule. > > And his principal victims were the Indians — “a beastly people with a > beastly religion,” as he charmingly called us, a “foul race.” Churchill was > an appalling racialist, one who could not bring himself to see any people > of color as entitled to the same rights as himself. (He “did not admit,” > for instance, “that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of > America, or the black people of Australia … by the fact that a stronger > race, a higher grade race, has come in and taken its place.”) He > fantasized luridly of having Mahatma Gandhi tied to the ground and trampled > upon by elephants. > > Thanks to Churchill’s personal decisions, more than 3 million Bengalis > died of hunger in a 1943 famine. Churchill deliberately ordered the > diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British > soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles, meant for > yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs. “The starvation of anyway > underfed Bengalis is less serious” than that of “sturdy Greeks,” he argued. > When reminded of the suffering of Bengalis, his response was typically > Churchillian: The famine was the Indians’ own fault, he said, for “breeding > like rabbits.” If the suffering was so dire, he wrote on the file, “Why > hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” > > It’s important to remember that these weren’t enemies in a war — Churchill > also wanted to “drench the cities of the Ruhr” in poison gas and said of > the Japanese, “we shall wipe them out, every one of them, men, women and > children” — but *British subjects*. Nor can his views be excused as being > reflective of their times; his own Secretary of State for War, Leo Amery, > confessed that he could see very little difference between Churchill’s > attitude and Hitler’s. > > Britons and Oscar voters may yet thrill to Churchill’s stirring words > about freedom. But to the descendants of the Iraqis whom Churchill gassed > and the Greek protesters on the streets of Athens who were mowed down on > his orders in 1944 (killing 28 and maiming 120), to sundry Pashtuns and > Irish, to Afghans and Kenyans and Welsh miners as well as to Indians like > myself, it will always be a mystery why a few bombastic speeches have been > enough to wash the bloodstains off Churchill’s hands. We shall remember him > as a war criminal and an enemy of decency and humanity, a blinkered > imperialist untroubled by the oppression of non-white peoples, a man who > fought not to defend but to deny our freedom. > > This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial > board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. > > To contact the author of this story: > Shashi Tharoor at off...@tharoor.in > S Chander >
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