The Privilege That Remained
What the Colonizers Left Behind
There is a widely circulated story about a group of monkeys kept in a cage with a bunch of bananas hanging above them.
Whenever one of the monkeys tried to reach the bananas, the entire group was punished. After a few attempts, the monkeys learnt to stop anyone who tried. The punishment was then stopped.
Then, one by one, the original monkeys were replaced. Each new monkey would initially try to reach the bananas, only to be stopped by the others. Even the monkeys that had never experienced the original punishment began stopping newcomers from doing the same.
Eventually, none of the monkeys in the cage had been part of the original group. But the behaviour continued.
The story offers a useful way to think about what can happen when a system of power becomes embedded deeply enough. The people enforcing it do not always need to be the people who created it, similar to pre and post colonial rule in India.
Colonial powers could not govern large populations directly. They depended on local intermediaries such as landlords, zamindars, chiefs and administrators to collect enormous taxes and enforce their policies. In the process, these selected groups gained greater access to land, authority and the colonial administration.
The countries, institutions and forms of colonial rule were different. In parts of India, British land settlements strengthened the position of landlords. In several African colonies, systems of indirect rule similarly increased the authority of chiefs and other local elites. Those below them had to learn how to work within that hierarchy.
Research across countries that were colonized shows that many of these arrangements continued to shape who had access to land, education, political power and economic opportunity long after independence.
When we speak of the British policy of divide and rule in India, we usually think of religion. We think of the mistrust and hostility that was encouraged between communities, and of how some of those divisions continued after independence.
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But there is another divide that receives less attention. It was the divide between classes of people. The favoured groups under British Raj were not only better placed economically. They were also treated as being above the common person.
The British Raj itself was built on ideas of white supremacy. Europeans occupied the highest positions in the social and administrative order, and racial superiority was openly reflected in institutions, clubs, neighbourhoods, employment and everyday interactions. The local aristocratic and privileged classes often reproduced a similar sense of superiority towards those below them.
The basis was no longer just the race. It could be wealth, education, family, position or proximity to power. But the idea that some people were simply above others remained. Rules could work differently depending on who you were. The powerful were approached with deference, while the ordinary person had far less ability to question them.
Independence changed who occupied the highest positions, but it did not necessarily change this relationship with power. The divide between ruler and ruled became the divide between the privileged and everyone else.
We can still see this in the way many of our institutions are structured. The difference in status and treatment between a jawan and a senior officer in the armed forces can be enormous. Similar gaps exist between a police constable and a senior police officer, or between a regular government employee and an IAS officer.
The difference is not only in responsibility or pay. It extends to housing, facilities, social interaction, access and the way people are expected to behave around one another.
These distinctions are already so normalized that we rarely question them. In fact, we often turn them into ambition. The aim becomes to reach the other side of the wall, not to ask why the wall exists in the first place. Just like in the monkey story, the original punishment may no longer exist, but the behaviour continues.
Why would those at the top want to change a system that continues to benefit them?
Colonialism may have ended politically, but many of the social structures it helped strengthen still reward those who already have access, status and power. Dismantling them would mean giving up some of that advantage.
That makes change difficult from the top. But the larger problem is that it is also accepted, defended and aspired to by those below.
Perhaps decolonization requires more than changing institutions. It requires a complete overhaul in the way we think about status, authority and privilege, especially within administrative and law enforcement departments.
One of the worst legacies of colonialism may not be what it took away, but what it taught societies to continue doing to themselves.
