Would you agree with Namvar Singh that ‘neo-colonialism’ can be resisted? Discuss

Whose tradition is it to be? The two examples Singh gives are those of the imperial powers of today who still have a vested interest in their previous colonies, and who need to see India and the Third World as a backward and primitive place. The imperial forces pick out of India’s past only those things that help consolidate the image of primitiveness and backwardness. The second example is that of the one-dimensional and narrow tradition presented by Hindu fundamentalists as India’s ‘real’ past. Both these groups create a tradition with a motive that is either political or commercial or both.

Singh also rejects the option of resisting neo-colonialism through the ‘nationalist allegory’. “Whose nation?’, he asks. The poor, the backward, the Dalit do not according to him, identify with the nation as it currently obtains. He points out that the nationalism that existed at the beginning of the twentieth century has done its job and spent its energies; there is no point in trying to revive it, or invoke it once again. Instead, Singh argues that resistance can be organised by taking into account the realities of the present.