George Floyd and the Death of American Democracy

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Police officer kneeling on his neck

USA is erupting in a race war that should show to the world the ugly face of American Liberlism. White liberalism has presented itself as a friend of the Blacks and has essentily hi jacked the Black Lives Matter Movement for serving its own decietful political agenda. This may sound strange, but the fact is that unlike the Ku Klaux Klan and the Southern Red Neck, who do not present themselves of friends of the Blacks, the white liberal is said to be  alet to discrimination, oppression and inequality, slogans that they deploy to deflect attention from any attempt at scrutinizing their record vis a vis the Blacks. In the Universities, the white liberals thunder to ther students about the "politics of race" "racial profiling" " white privilege" etc a rhetoric tht sometimes seduces the blacks to support the white liberal agenda: the Woke Agenda. And the same is replicated across the world. The support extended by these miserable white liberals to the agitations against a perfectly legal and democatic Citizenship Ammendment Act (CAA) passed by the Indian Parliament to extend the benefits of citizenship to the dispossessed minorities in the Islamic Republics in th neighbourhood of India also stems from the same perverted understanding of the moral centrality of the "white" race in negotiating the complex problems of the world today. A control over the acedemia and the Press has made woke liberalism thrive in the exalted ether of Post Colonialism. Now back to USA.

The American Police treats the Native Aerican and the Black Americans as the enemy or in woke lino, the "Other". Barack Hussein Obama made the situation worse for the African Americans by creating a huge industry of Prisons for Profits and by introducing madatory sentencing for non violent crimes such as drug dealing. A life imprisonment for being caught with 5 gms of drugs is unfair to say the least and that was the contribution of the dreamboy of the woke liberals, Obama. There are three basic problems within the African American community: lack of educational opportunities and skills, lack of positive role models and excessive state intusion in the lives of African American communities and the Police or th social welfare organs of the American state are the most egresious invaders of Back social and cultural space. Black mothers are routnely threatened to have their babies taken away for "neglect" and that too because she has to work to support the baby in the first place and most work spaces for low skilled jobs do not have creches or day care centres.

White liberals who are so eloquent about Inequality and are likely to have read a rave review of Thomas Pikketty have not said anything worthwhile on the Skilling of the African American youth. I remeber when I was a Ph D student at a well known American University I studied History and got my PhD in Medieval History way back in 1987) an African American gratudate student who went by the unfortunate name E Pluribus Unnum was repeatedly discouraged and humiliated until he exhausted his savings from doing a construction job in New York and then he faded away. The man responsible was one with an implacable liberal credentials. And I can say that when it comes to frothing at the mouth with liberal platitudes, there cannnot be anyone better than white liberals with their manifestos denouncing Inequality Racism Oppression and the like and they carry this toxic ideological cocktail into academic witngs in the name of post colonialism. All the while we must remember they are the poducts of white privilge and use that privilege to batten themselves at the expense of others,

There have been nearly 100 deaths this year alone of Black men who have been killed by policemen. Is their training at fault? We have no answer? Is the system of White Privilege so entrenched that the woke liberals cannot do anything maningful? I cannot udndertand how political leaders like Nancy Pelosi who has been so hyperactive against Donal Trump has done nothing for the under privileged in her own society. Even here after the killing of Geoge Floyd she was busy denouncing Trump who said quite categorigally tht rotest should not deenerate into Anarchy. Now the rioting that is taking place in New York, Washington, Richmond, Los Angles and scores of other cities is bringing a collapse of American society which is already been battered by COVID 19.

American Racism has two faces the ugly face of the KKK and the pretty face of the Woke Liberals and I feel I am safer with one whose malefesence I understand.

William Roxburgh and Indian Botany Plants Empire and Trade: Roxburgh and the Royal Botanical Garden Calcutta

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

PART III

Wiki Commons Roxburg Mansion Howrah

After the terrible diasater faced by William Roxburgh, he was called upon to the Superindendent of the newly established Botanical Garden at Calcutta. His great work on Indian flora, Flora Indica was undertaken here and was published by the Serampore Baptist Press under the stewartsip of William Carey.The influence of the Linnean System of Taxonomy and Nomenclature is embodied in this work' William Roxburgh took charge of the Botanical Garden in 1793 and in his first stint remained till 1797 wnen he returned to England to regain his health.In October 1799 he returned to Calcutta and remained in India till 1805 and left for his native Scotland in 1805 after spending a few months at St. Helena, the Company Island.In 1813 he left India for good to settle in Scotland. At the time of his depature he left his botanical collection and the Manuscripts of his Flora Indica with Carey anf they formed the basis of the two major publications of william Roxburgh: Hortus Bengalensis, a catalogue of plants in the botanical Garden and Flora Indica the outstanding classica work on Indian plants which till this day is regarded as the starting point of Indian Botany.

One of the first taks that he accomplished at Calcutta was the construction of hie Residence and Herbarium that also housed his Library, With the help of his extensive network of collaborators strewn all over the World, Roxburgh was able to bud up a good library of Botanical works, thereby replacing the one that he lost at Samalkotta.Roxburgh was particularly interested in commercial plants like Cotton and Indigo which would enable the East India Company increase its profits. Though he was not a founding member of the Asiatic Society of India which was created by Sir William Jones in 1784, Roxburgh publihed many of his researches in the Journal of the Asiatic Society and in Asiatik Researches. It has become fashinable for historians of Science writing under the pernecious shadow of Saidian, Foucouldian and Post Colonial theories to argue that such scientific enterprises as for instance the one presided over by Roxburgh or that of his contemporary Colin Makenzie were in reality elaborated trophies of power and Imperial Domination. The  argument being that Empire seeks to classify,rationalise, and ultimately appropriate the local knowledge in order ro subserve imperial ends. Joseph Banks and William Roxburgh are viewed as marionettes on a stage pre determined by economic and technological actors. Such an approach to History is both teleological and deterministic and denies the agency of human actors involved. The work undertaken by men uch as these must be seen in the light of their own acions and perceptions within an overarching framework provided by the East India Company.

When Robert Kyd left the botanical garden, there were only around 335 species of plants, trees and ferns in the Royal Botanical Garden. When Roxburgh retired after serving the Garden for nearly two decades the number had passed 3335 species. A  number of plants were introduced from China, South East Asia especially the Mlay Peninsula, West Indies, Canary Island, St Helena. Effort was made to introduce Mahogony and the Garden still has the trees planted by Roxbergh and as if by mircale survived the recent Cyclone Anpham. SriLanka, Bhutan, Andaman Islands were some of the other places from where plants were secured. The logic behind such exchanges was the pesrvation of seed and plant types so that a better understanding of nature could be obtined. Al this, of course, was predicated on the pious assumption that by careful study the Garden of Eden could be recreated here on Earth.

Of great interest was Sugar to the early pioneers. The politics of the East India Company collided head on with that of the entrenched Sugar lobby in the House of Commons who wee represntative of the West Indies Sugar interests who used African Slave labour to grow their commercial crop. The American War of Independence and the problems in the Aylantic in the early nineteenth century gave Indian sugar some respite and India started exporting Sugar by the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, Another issue that the Company faced was the drain of silver caused b the voracious demand fro Tea in England. The trade with China was financed by the export of Silver and until the Company hit upon Opium and forced it upon the Chinese from 1832 onwards, effort was made to grow Tea in India. Ut was Roxburgh who got 272 tea cuttings from Canton and tried to acclamatize Ta to Indian conditions.

The lasting contibution of William Roxburgh lay i his Plants of the Coromandel and Flora Indica. 
Another commercial crop in which Roxburgh showed great interest was Hemp which was used in packing and cordage. In the 310 acres that constituted the Botanical Garden, a part was dedicated exclusively to commercial crops and it may not be out of palce to point out that Rxburgh was the founder of Plant Research in India.

William Roxburgh died in 1815 but his name lives on.