Phobia Sub Indo

[Kum Dana]

AntiIndian sentiment or anti-Indianism, also called Indophobia, refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination which are directed at the Indian people for any variety of reasons. It may be rooted in a person's negative perception of India, Indian culture, or Indian history, among other factors.[1] According to Kenyan-American academic Ali Mazrui, Indophobia is "a tendency to react negatively towards people of Indian extraction, against aspects of Indian culture and normative habits."[2] As such, it is the opposite of Indomania, which refers to a pronounced affinity for Indians and their culture, history, and country. Anti-Indian sentiment is frequently a manifestation of racism, specifically, it is frequently a manifestation of racism against Asians, particularly in cases in which Indians are targeted alongside other South Asians or simply alongside other people of colour. Regardless of their motivation, Indophobic individuals often invoke stereotypes of Indians to justify their feelings or attitudes towards them.

The relationship between Indomania and Indophobia in the British Indology during the Victoria era was discussed by American academic Thomas Trautmann who found that Indophobia had become a norm in the early-19th century British discourse on India as the result of a conscious agenda of evangelicalism and utilitarianism, especially by Charles Grant and James Mill.[4] Historians noted that during British rule in India, "evangelical influence drove British policy down a path that tended to minimize and denigrate the accomplishments of Indian civilization and to position itself as the negation of the earlier British Indomania that was nourished by belief in Indian wisdom."[5]

In Grant's highly controversial 1796 work Observations on the ... Asiatic subjects of Great Britain,[6] he criticized the Orientalists for being too respectful to Indian culture and religion. His work tried to determine the Hindus' "true place in the moral scale" and he alleged that the Hindus are "a people exceedingly depraved". Grant believed that Great Britain's duty was to civilise and Christianize the natives.

One of the most influential historians of India during the British Empire, James Mill was criticised for prejudice against Hindus.[9] Horace Hayman Wilson wrote that the tendency of Mill's work was "evil".[10] Mill claimed that both Indians and Chinese people are cowardly, unfeeling and mendacious. Both Mill and Grant attacked Orientalist scholarship that was too respectful of Indian culture: "It was unfortunate that a mind so pure, so warm in the pursuit of truth so devoted to oriental learning, as that of Sir William Jones, should have adopted the hypothesis of a high state of civilization in the principal countries of Asia."[11]Dadabhai Naoroji spoke against such anti-India sentiment.[12]

Stereotypes of Indians intensified during and after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, known as India's First War of Independence to the Indians and as the Sepoy Mutiny to the British, when Indian sepoys rebelled against the British East India Company's rule in India. Allegations of war rape were used as propaganda by British colonialists in order to justify the colonization of India. While incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against British women and girls were virtually non-existent, this was exaggerated by the British media to justify continued British intervention in the Indian subcontinent.[13]

Despite the questionable authenticity of colonial accounts regarding the rebellion, the stereotype of the Indian "dark-skinned rapist" occurred frequently in English literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The idea of protecting British "female chastity" from the "lustful Indian male" had a significant influence on the British Raj's policies outlawing miscegenation between Europeans and Indians. While some restrictive policies were imposed on white women in India to "protect" them from miscegenation, most were directed against Indians.[16][17] For example, the 1883 Ilbert Bill, which would have granted Indian judges the right to judge offenders regardless of ethnicity, was opposed by many Anglo-Indian people on the grounds that Indian judges could not be trusted in cases alleging the rape of white women.[18]

Leo Amery wrote in his private diaries that upon learning Indian separatists were refusing to resist the Japanese and contribute to the war effort, Winston Churchill, in private conversation, said out of frustration, he "hated Indians" and considered them "a beastly people with a beastly religion". According to Amery, during the Bengal famine, Churchill stated that any potential relief efforts sent to India would accomplish little to nothing, as Indians "breeding like rabbits".[19] Leo Amery likened Churchill's understanding of India's problems to King George III's apathy for the Americas. Amery wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's".[20][21]

According to Christophe Jaffrelot and Jean-Luc Racine, Pakistan's nationalism is primarily anti-Indian, even though both were part of the British Indian Empire (before 1947). This, he argued, is part of the essence of the country's identity.[22] However anti-Indian sentiments have waxed and waned in the country since its independence.[23][24] According to Tufts University professor Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, anti-India sentiment in Pakistan increased with the ascendancy of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami under Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.[24]

Some British Indian Muslims feared the Hindu majority that would gain political ascendance after the abolition of the colonial system of following the end of British rule. This view was bolstered by religious riots in British India such as the 1927 Nagpur riots.[25] The Two-Nation Theory was enunciated by Allama Iqbal,[26][27] which was supported by the All-India Muslim League and eventually culminated in the independence from British colonial rule of both India and of Pakistan in 1947.[28]

Violence at the time of the partition of British India and even prior led to communal tensions and enmity among Hindus and Muslims. In Pakistan, this contributed to Indophobia. In an interview with Indian news channel CNN-IBN Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan said in 2011: "I grew up hating India because I grew up in Lahore and there were massacres of 1947, so much bloodshed and anger. But as I started touring India, I got such love and friendship there that all this disappeared."[29]

The Two-Nation Theory is predicated on the belief that at the time of the Partition, the Indian Subcontinent was not a nation and in its extreme interpretation, it postulates the belief that Indian Hindus and Indian Muslims constituted nations that cannot co-exist "in a harmonious relationship".[30][31][32][33]

According to Husain Haqqani, Pakistan faced multiple challenges to its survival after the partition. At the time Pakistan's secular leaders decided to use Islam as a rallying cry against perceived threats from predominantly Hindu India. Unsure of Pakistan's future, they deliberately promoted anti-Indian sentiment with "Islamic Pakistan" resisting a "Hindu India".[34]

According to Nasr, anti-Indian sentiments, coupled with anti-Hindu prejudices have existed in Pakistan since its formation.[24] With the ascendancy of the Jamaat-e-Islami under Maududi, Indophobia increased in Pakistan.[24][35]

In his article "The future of Pakistan" published by Brookings Institution American South Asia expert Stephen P. Cohen describes the Pakistan-India relationship as a neverending spiral of sentiments against each other.[37]

According to Sustainable Development Policy Institute since the 1970s Pakistani school textbooks have systematically inculcated hatred towards India and Hindus.[38][39] According to this report, "Associated with the insistence on the Ideology of Pakistan has been an essential component of hate against India and the Hindus. For the upholders of the Ideology of Pakistan, the existence of Pakistan is defined only in relation to Hindus hence the Hindus have to be painted as negatively as possible".[38]

A 2005 report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace, a nonprofit organization in Pakistan, found that Pakistan studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy-makers have attempted to inculcate towards the Hindus. "Vituperative animosities legitimize military and autocratic rule, nurturing a siege mentality. Pakistan Studies textbooks are an active site to represent India as a hostile neighbor", the report stated. "The story of Pakistan's past is intentionally written to be distinct from often in direct contrast with, interpretations of history found in India. From the government-issued textbooks, students are taught that Hindus are backward and superstitious." Further, the report stated "Textbooks reflect intentional obfuscation. Today's students, citizens of Pakistan and its future leaders are the victims of these blatant lies."[40]

In 1971 rising political discontent in East Pakistan, on the other side of India from West Pakistan, led to calls to secede from Pakistan, which were brutally suppressed by Pakistan Army leading to the Bangladesh Liberation War. India intervened, triggering the brief 1971 Indo-Pakistani war that culminated in Pakistan's defeat and the secession of East Pakistan which then became Bangladesh. According to Ardeshir Cowasjee in West Pakistan the region's political and military leadership whipped up the anti-Indian sentiment with the slogan "crush India", in an attempt to convince the people that the only issue in East Pakistan was India's support of a secessionist movement.[44]

Writing for Middle East Research and Information Project the Pakistani nuclear scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy stated that anti-Indian sentiment is instilled in Pakistani soldiers early in their training at Cadet College Hasan Abdal and Cadet College Petaro. He also claimed that in order to prosper, Pakistan needed to overcome its hatred of India.[45]

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