I went to this wonderful and inspiring talk by Dr. Dibyesh Anand today. I was interested in this subject as China and India have become more powerful in the world today and the eyes of international community are closely on current affairs of these states. Dr. Anand talked about China and India as postcolonial informal empires in their treatment of their own population, especially in Tibet and Kashmir. As negative effects of colonisation are widely discussed by scholars, I was struck by the term, new for me, ‘Postcolonial informal empires’ as I couldn’t grasp the idea that ex-colonies like India and China can behave in a similar way as colonisers towards their own people, in particular, minorities. By adapting political ideas and technologies of ex empires such as nationalism and uniting these with narratives of historical greatness, India and China are building their multinational states. In order to control these states China and India are accepting multi-ethnic cultural rights but denying political agency, bringing further marginalisation of rights for their minorities in Tibet and Kashmir respectively. Having in mind the famous quote by John Acton that ‘The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities’, I kept wondering whether following the path of ex-empires like Britain and France can bring greater development to China and India as whole nations?
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