India’s Abandoned Island of Colonial Horror

[rangerrebew]

 
India’s Abandoned Island of Colonial Horror
Eerie and desolate, Ross Island harbors a tale of oppression and disaster
By Neelima Vallangi
May 8, 2018 1:14PM
2663192

For decades, an obscure speck of an island—measuring less than one-third of one square mile—was the site of the brutalization of thousands of convicts and political prisoners amidst a luxurious British colonial settlement. Today, the jungle has reclaimed the land of Ross Island, shrouding in foliage its gruesome past. Giant knots of Ficus tree roots ensconce the dilapidated remains of opulent bungalows, and have taken over a ballroom where couples once waltzed. Some 800 miles away from the coast of mainland India, the island in the Indian Ocean is now swaddled in eerie desolation and overgrown vegetation.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/indias-abandoned-island-colonial-horror-180960617/#wACc5KMu2PgDpFYM.99
 
 

[driftdiver]

Heck the British prisons in England were far worse then this.

[skeeter]

Heck the British prisons in England were far worse then this.

Britain was so successful as a colonial power because they always managed to obtain the cooperation of much of the local populace and power structure, giving locals autonomy and enabling the colonials to keep their own profile in the region relatively low.

[driftdiver]

I once read a take on Ghandi that made a lot of sense.   That he was fortunate he was dealing with the British who were generally good.  So when he sat in a road in a peaceful protest they went around him. 

If he had been dealing with the Russians they would have shot him then thrown him in the ditch.   we would have never heard his name.