Undermining Decolonisation

The term ‘decolonisation’ is generally believed to have been coined by a German scholar named Moritz Julius Bonn in 1932,1 but as a comparison of the number of scholarly articles containing the term before and after the year 2000 shows,2 its use has risen sharply in more recent times. While it is a positive thing that the concept is better known, there are legitimate fears about the overuse of the term as a ‘buzzword’ devoid of political and practical significance.3 This is not the only valid cause of concern regarding its use. Another is that those who claim to be engaging in acts of decolonisation, while enacting a colonial mindset elsewhere, undermine the cause of decolonisation.

The first significant example of this that I investigated, through my doctoral thesis,4 was the contradictions between President Zia-ul-Haq’s anti-colonial rhetoric versus the ways in which he mimicked a colonial mindset through his regime’s (1977-88) enactment of the Islamisation process. That is, the rationale that Zia gave for the Islamisation process was to address the root causes of colonialism, but the process itself involved the perpetuation of colonial thought and practice. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1980, Zia stated that both social justice and economic inequality had been caused by a loss of faith and “unbridled materialism,” which itself had bred both imperialism and colonialism. He also lamented the existence of neocolonial practices, insofar as “economic exploitation” was being employed against newly independent, post-colonial states.5 Islamisation would thus act as a panacea to these social ills because of its emphasis on justice and morality. However, the Zia regime itself engaged in neocolonial practices. Having assumed power through a coup, Zia, like the British colonial administration in pre-Partition India, made sweeping legal changes without a democratic mandate.6 For example, four out of the five new offences relating to religion were added under Zia through ordinances when the constitution was being held in abeyance.7 Similarly, like the British colonial administration, Zia criminalised groups considered to be a threat to his ideology or authority, such as with the Ahmadiyyah community and student unions, respectively.8 Therefore, not only did these contradictions between Zia’s rhetoric and actions undermine his self-avowed commitment to anti-colonialism, but they reflect an almost universal problem in politics and governance: that bad things are only challenged when it suits the interests of that particular party or power.

These two concerns are also reflected within the contemporary example of the Indian government’s approach to decolonisation. While the government openly pledged before UNGA during Narendra Modi’s second term in 2022 that India would “liberate” itself from a “colonial mindset,” it has behaved in ways that can be considered indicative of a colonial mindset and, in turn, it has used accusations of a colonial mindset in others to deflect from legitimate criticism.9 Firstly, it has and continues to use laws that can be traced back to the colonial era to suppress the work of journalists and activists who are critical of the government, such as through the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).10 Secondly, the term ‘settler colonialism’ is increasingly being deployed as a description of the government’s actions in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the wake of the revocation of Article 370 and 35-A.11 This is because of fears that the demographics are being altered to determine the outcome of the long-awaited plebiscite. Both of these examples are evidence for contradictions in the government’s approach to decolonisation and thus cast aspersions over its commitment to the process. Moreover, Modi’s government has also used accusations of a ‘colonial mindset’ to deflect from legitimate criticisms of Modi’s past conduct, such as against the BBC when it released a documentary in January 2023 exploring some new evidence about Modi’s complicity in the Gujarat riots of 2002.12 Therefore, the same contradictions regarding colonialism are present both within the historic example of the Zia regime through its Islamisation process in Pakistan and within the contemporary example of Modi’s government in India.

The engagement of the leaders of formerly colonised nations in neocolonial practices is a source of concern for scholars of decolonisation and post-colonial studies. Themrise Khan has remarked that

former colonies are now themselves exhibiting colonial tendencies and exacerbating power inequalities within their own countries; for instance, by discriminating against —often through violent means— religious and ethnic minorities, by exerting feudal control, financial corruption or through political dictatorships. If we are to speak about decolonization, we cannot ignore examples of how abuse of power manifests itself outside the global North.13

Therefore, while the decolonisation process must naturally address the relationships between former coloniser nations and those which were formerly colonised, as I am seeking to do through my current research, these realities reflect how the blame for the existence of ongoing colonial legacies cannot be laid solely at the door of the former colonisers, although much can be. Rather, indigenous leaders that have ruled since independence have played their parts in maintaining colonial thought and practices too. This also reflects the multifaceted nature of decolonisation, insofar as it is not only the process of gaining independence from direct colonial rule, but it also a process of dismantling colonial legacies and the ideas that underpinned them. These colonial legacies can range from the means and content of education through to how language enables elitism, to how the laws are used to suppress dissent. These legacies are accompanied by ideas originating in the colonial period, such as that Western education and the English language are superior to non-Western education and indigenous languages, and that the masses are ungovernable and thus require stringent laws to be kept in their place. It is these legacies and ideas that still require decolonising from within former colonised nations; a process that cannot be truly completed if accompanied by neocolonial thought and practice.