THE culture of ‘colonial mentality complex’, contradistinguished from ‘colonial mentality’, uncritically affixes blame for a nation’s present-day failings on events of the past, often absolving itself of responsibility, and taking offence at the thought of any value of benign character originating in the West. This attitude is contagious and self-defeating.

In Inglorious Empire, Shashi Tharoor writes: “Company official John Sullivan observed in the 1840s: ‘The little court disappears — trade languishes — the capital decays — the people are impoverished — the Englishman flourishes, and acts like a sponge, drawing up riches from the banks of the Ganges, and squeezing them down upon the banks of the Thames’.” To argue otherwise would be like insisting the earth is flat.

I recently wrote an article quoting Churchill and Roosevelt, in response to which I received many e-mails expressing disappointment for having quoted Western leaders and concepts. The remonstration was that I should have quoted Eastern leaders, and drawn on comparable examples from the East instead. Such sentiments have been fermented by political populists in Pakistan — to call out anyone who speaks of any Western value, no matter how benevolent or........

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