ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Evils of Westernization Supplement 3 All colonies of the West in the East had to meet this challenge. For instance, the Indian subcontinent, which remained under the British colonial rule virtually for about two centuries, underwent a process of Westernization, but it could affect a minority of civil servants and upper ruling class only, and failed to engulf the vast majority of the Muslim and non-Muslim population.

The Western education system was thrust upon the subcontinent partly due to needs of the British rulers for efficient functionaries for their administration, and partly because a few far-sighted leaders considered the old Muslim and Hindu systems of education out-dated and felt that the Indians' acquaintance with modern sciences was the only means of rescuing them from total destruction.

A section of orthodox Muslim 'ulama' and staunch champions of Hindu culture put up some resistance to the Western influence. This resistance, though not lasting long, served as a warning as well as a safety measure and effective restraint in checking complete surrender of India to the W est. Thus, the Indians were enabled to master modern scientific knowledge and its tools without being totally alienated from their own cultural traditions.

Only a negligible minority of timeservers took pride in Anglicizing themselves, but the majority of the Muslims, Hindus, and other communities, including even new converts to Christianity, retained and preserved their traditional style of life. As a consequence of firm adherence to their native traditions, Indians learnt modern sciences and proved themselves to be the equals, in specialized fields, of the Westerners, but at the same time they retained their "Indianness".

Contrarily, in Iran, after the early resistance against Westernization by the clergy was repressed by force, there was no check against Westernization. It is more tragic that instead of trying to specialize in modern sciences they remained content in imitating Western ways of dressing, living and eating, and they forcibly unveiled their women without initiating them into modern spirit.

Another factor that accelerated superficial Westernization was affluence, which came in the wake of the oil money. Jalal repeatedly uses the phrase "the ugly head of oil" for referring to the negative consequences of the oil.