We all breezed through our History textbooks back in school. As youngsters, we were never really told that this shit matters. The significance of our study was seldom absorbed by us. That may not be as much a problem with the quality of our teachers in the education system as opposed to the very nature of its pedagogy. History was all about fact-keeping and learning by rote. Inferences and a nuanced world-view were never the ultimate takeaways.
But there are a lot of loop-holes in such a system. Our passivity toward the subject material might give wiggling room to personalities with a darker shade to their legacy. They pass off as heroes, as apostles of all the good things that humanity stands for, as saviours of the world and the like. One of them is Winston Churchill.
It was the intro to Iron Maiden’s stellar metal ripper- Aces High- that really got us interested in Winston Churchill. What little we could read about him told us that he had every reason to be voted The Greatest Briton by BBC’s poll in 2002. But there were these contrarian voices that bothered us. History can never be seen from a single perspective within a narrow lens. Thanks to prominent intellectuals like Shashi Tharoor and Caroline Elkins, we were able to decipher for ourselves a truer standing of the man in our minds.
The allegation by John McDonnell against Sir Winston Churchill is nothing new in the British political scene- classic Labour Party diatribe against the far-right Conservatives. We Indians are no aliens to such political discourse closer back home. While we cannot comment on the Tonypandy angle brought in by the Shadow Chancellor in Britain, as citizens of the erstwhile Commonwealth, and as proud Indians, we can very well testify that Sir Winston Churchill is not just a villain, but a SUPERVILLAIN.
It’s sad that many in India and across the world still venerate the man. If you can quote Churchill at will, you are assumed to be erudite, well-spoken and learned. While that’s alright, idolizing the man and glorifying him without knowing his predisposition towards Indians and other citizens of the larger Commonwealth is unfortunate.
Sir Winston Churchill was a controversial figure throughout his political career. The difference was that he landed up on the right side of History. While he displayed some political bravado (with his “We will shall never surrender!” speech) during the Second World War, his attitude toward the citizens of the so-called Third World was nothing different than most his contemporary zealots.
Indeed, he was no different than Sadaam Hussein even, in that he advocated the used of Gas on Kurds and Iraqis in Mesopotamia. Starry-eyed Conservatives and Colonial Apologists from across the Commonwealth might step forward, and say that the intention was never to kill, but to maim. This is a sad argument as we are now wagering one human rights violation against another; as if their immorality wasn’t already absolute.
This is just one instance that can be used as an example to argue that Winston Churchill has much blood on his hands as any genocidal dictator of the 20th Century.
We at indieA felt that many in India and across the world have a positive outlook toward the man. We wanted to bring an alternate perspective, to look at the darker side of Sir Winston Churchill’s enigma and explore why he might very well be India’s Hitler in our video below-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSxk3ZBJ1A