Colonialism And Violence Analysis

The link between violence and colonialism is seen in newspaper accounts across the globe: “Gandhi Is Killed by A Hindu; India Shaken, World Mourns; 15 Die in Rioting in Bombay Three Shots Fired ”, “54 Dead, 191 Hurt in Riots” in South Africa. Throughout the course of history, colonialism has often been depicted as violence on the innocents by an aggressor, all in all a very one sided series of violent oppressive acts by the colonial power upon a weaker subjugate indigenous group. However, with colonialism in India, South Africa, and the United States, the common theme was violent conviction in your beliefs, in which the colonial power’s role as giver or receiver of the violence varied with the situation. Rather than an obvious link in which the colonial power always acted as the aggressor, the colonial power can sometimes be on the receiving end of the violence, as shown in the anti-passive model in India, Britain and the United States. Colonialism is accompanied by a cycle of violence and retaliatory violence that often costs the …show more content…
In India, the Bhagavad Gita was the major source of the belief in the indigenous people that conviction in your beliefs and the use of action, often through aggressive means, to further your beliefs was the destined path. The Bhagavad Gita appeals to the masculine identity and in its depictions of family as patrilineal, and the masculine warrior as the one who has power, the Gita often implies that violence is deemed acceptable and often encouraged in order for you to ascertain your convictions and identity as a person. The Gita was an essential text of the Indian culture, and its tale of the warrior prince Arjuna confronting a life-or-death moral dilemma appealed to Indians in their time of subservience under British rule . The British fueled the growing belief in the indigenous