Post by String on Jul 7, 2019 12:09:08 GMT -5
The racists in the program were far too stereotyped, with "reasons" for their hated. The truth is that racism back then in places like Montgomery, Alabama was entirely institutional. Most people weren't racist for any particular reason...they were just racist. For example, I know for a fact that the bus driver in the Rosa Parks case was entirely unrepentant in later years. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't doing anything differently with Parks from what he'd done countless times before. Ultimately, I think the episode reduced an important historical event to a two-dimensional cartoon.
But that was nothing compared to the episode about Indian/Pakistan partition, which was pure historical revisionism. It suggested or implied that the partitioning of the Indian continent into India and Pakistan was the fault of the dastardly, wicked British. That's completely untrue: the British were totally opposed to dividing the country up in that way. It was the Indian Muslims -- principally their leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who became the first governor of Pakistan -- that pushed for it. He was adamant that Muslims in the Indian subcontinent should get their own state. In the elections immediately after the end of WW2, the Muslim League won the majority of Muslim seats, giving them the political clout to push for Jinnah's dream.
When negotiations for the ending of the British Raj and Indian independence began, the Indian Congress and the Muslim League couldn't agree on a power-sharing deal for the country...mostly due to Jinnah's hardline beliefs and unwillingness to compromise. Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and the English Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, were all utterly opposed to the breaking up of the country. But although they tried their hardest to avoid it, they reluctantly came to realise that Jinnah and the Muslim League were immovable on the matter. So, reluctantly, partitioning was the only option.
However, the British knew that partitioning would cause a huge humanitarian crisis and unnecessary bloodshed...and that's exactly what happened. They resisted and fought passionately against partition, but Jinnah was adamant about the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan.
In particular, I always felt sorry for Mountbatten; he was quite a moderate among the British and certainly a humanitarian. It was his job to oversee the handing back of the subcontinent and, as it turned out, the dividing up of the country into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. It's a shame because he was utterly opposed to partition and ultimately the whole process bore his name, as The Mountbatten Plan. He always felt ashamed of that, apparently, and as I say, it was never something he wanted
That episode of Doctor Who which used partitioning as a back drop willfully distorted the facts in order to criticise the ruling British of the times. Instead, should've been criticising Jinnah and the Muslim League...but that wouldn't have suited the anti-British agenda they wanted to push in the program, would it?
There's plenty of legitimate criticisms to level at the British Empire in India, without rewriting history to insinuate that partition was the British's idea. That kind of wilful revisionism is offensive in the extreme.
Thank you for some clarification on that regard. All I can say about that particular episode is that as an American, I am unaware of that specific part of history of that region. I don't rightly recall any mention or coverage of it in any history class that I took. When watching the episode in question, I thought it was an unusual historical setting, one not touched upon all that much by Western television. The issue of partitioning (as you've described here) seems to have complex reasons and passions involved within it and perhaps the TV show felt inadequate to delve deeply into such issues in light of presenting a straight drama/adventure instead. Of course, that's without saying anything about any underlying political/social agenda that may have been present in that episode or even whole season (which I think there was). Either way, I'm not really looking to Doctor Who for any accurate portrayal of history regardless but I can see your view in this regard.
As for OP, I think any environmental stance(s) are specific to their time. As passions flare for such action so too does reflections in pop culture. Specific environmental heroes may have limited exposure but general environmental themes and dangers can always be highlighted by those heroes most associated with those areas (for example, the dangers of sea pollution as portrayed by Aquaman and/or Sub-Mariner fighting against such dangers)
