Growing up in my country I constantly read in our textbooks that the British conquered us because they divided us and that this should serve as a reminder that national unity is the only way to avoid foreign domination. But the historical reality doesn't show that.
In most cases the EIC formed alliances with regional rivals and local elites who were acting in their own political and strategic self-interest. These groups were not passive victims manipulated into conflict, they saw cooperation with the British as the best way to advance their own ambitions and often they achieved many of their goals through those alliances.
While I'm thinking primarily about South Asia, the exact same narratives appear is most third world societies. Former colonies often claim they were conquered because the colonizers "divided and conquered" them, implying that major social, political or ethnic divisions either did not exist before colonialism and shouldn't matter now.
I'm curious have socialist historians or theorists argued against the simplified "divide and conquer" narrative or offered a more nuanced explanation of how colonialism relied on alliances with local elites, existing class structures, and pre-existing political conflicts?
>>2863953You're looking at things in a Black and White moralistic perspective. The Brits were on the team that beat the Nazis, that doesn't make them good. Your peoples were on the side that lost to the British, that doesn't make them good.
>These groups were not passive victims manipulated into conflict, they saw cooperation with the British as the best way to advance their own ambitions and often they achieved many of their goals through those alliances.
That's exactly what divide and conquer means though. If you're some random Indian prince in the early 19th century locked in a decades old struggle with a neighbouring kingdom, and the British offer to crush your rival in exchange for the right to export spices and tea from your ports, then obviously you're going to take that deal. Fast forward 50 years and that rival kingdom is now a under direct British rule, they have a permanent military presence in your kingdom, those trade concessions have grown into a total monopoly over your industries, direct taxation of your population, etc. Meanwhile you don't give a fuck because the Brits are making sure you and your cronies get a piece of the colonial plunder.
>>2863955What do you think I'm talking about?