Industrialization: The Role Of Imperialism In Nectar

Many countries in the world have gone through industrialization, but not every nation is willing to. A lot of times, a nation is forced into industrialization by another well developed country. This involuntary Industrialization can benefit countries in many ways such as acquiring a better healthcare for the people living there, but often times it has a negative impact on the lives of the natives. Many times the inhabitants have to go through events like famine or rebellion before they finally accept what the developed citizens have brought to them and realize that they need to make technological advancements. Moreover, countless times, industrialization is just an excuse to take important resources from the abundant land. In the novel Nectar

They do not understand that what the natives are doing or their reasoning has been beneficial to their survival and a part of their culture for innumerable number of years, but instead the colonizers consider the inhabitants ludicrous for not understanding or doing things in a way similar to themselves. In the novel, when Kenny is telling Rukmani about his family and how his wife left him, and after he criticizes Rukmani for having limited views on the subject, Rukmani says “Limited, yes…yet not wholly without understanding. Our ways are not your ways”(Markandaya 106). Rukmani has to remind Kenny that their thinking is not alike. Even though her tone in this sentence is not very direct, it is clear that she does not like being demeaned by Kenny. By saying the phrase ‘not wholly without understanding’, she obliquely points out to Kenny that for decades, the beliefs held by the Indians have been reliable. She shows the readers that the cultural differences in even meager situations such as this are ridiculed by the British. It might not be as evident to people how serious this can be when the situation is two people having a conversation. A more extreme example of this can be seen in a passage from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

In the novel, as Rukmani and Kenny are talking about how their cultural ways are different, Rukmani says “If you [live] here your whole life [this] still would not be [your country]”(Markandaya 107). Even though Kenny helps Rukmani and her daughter countless times throughout the novel, the tone that she uses in this sentence shows us that she never thinks of Kenny as one of them. Rukmani’s use of the phrase ‘your whole life’ emphasizes the point that she is trying to make which is that no matter how long you stay here and how much you help us, this will never be your country and you will never be one of us. Nectar in a sieve is not the only example of this kind of behaviour between a developed and undeveloped country. In the political cartoon ‘White Man’s Burden’ by Victor Gillam in Judge Magazine, there are 2 men carrying baskets of people on their backs to civilization and they are surrounded by rocks with various words on them. Through closer inspection, It is clear that one of the 2 men is a British man carrying a basket with a Zulu, a Chinese, an Egyptian, and an Indian man, and the rocks around them have the words “vice, brutality, slavery, cannibalism [and] cruelty” carved into them (Judge Magazine). Through further analysis, it