Not all colonials are equal.

I was at the British museum a month ago watching an exhibition on colonialism. What fascinated me is how India was given a certain dignity in the art Indian women were exotic, royal and in their finest clothing (nakedness is seen as a means of shaming and not eroticism). The African subject by contrast was less autonomous, the women naked and objects of sexualisation. There was a stark contrast in how the African and Asian subject was treated. One was given almost the same dignity as the British subject even imitated. Several paintings of white colonisers in Indian (royal) clothing were seen yet none of these existed for their African counterparts. Colonialism was and isn’t equal. While one continent was exoticised the other was thought of in terms of savagery. These ideas have not vanished but continue to haunt us in the present in the way we talk about Asians and Africans.