The staged theory of history was used to delegitimize anti-colonial revolt as premature

Evidence

Writing in the journal he had founded, al-Hilal, on the Indian uprisings of 1857 against the British, Zaydan warned Egyptians of the social disruption that faced them if they did not follow the steady course of development whose stages had been marked out by the West. The Indian revolt against colonialism had failed because India had not yet reached the historical stage in its development that made possible an independent political life. The Indian people had not acquired a knowledge of ‘science and administration’, or an understanding of their obligations to the state. Similarly, discussing the nationalist revolution of 1880–82 in Egypt, Zaydan described the country’s political disorder as the consequence of a ‘premature’ demand for change, by a people that had not properly followed the laws of social development. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 527 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-colonial revolt gets dismissed as neurotic madness rather than political action — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 159; An Arab intellectual used European stage-theory to delegitimize anticolonial revolts as premature — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 527; A former left revolutionary turned monarchist pioneered colonial expansion and brutal suppression — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1901

Broader Connections

• An Arab intellectual used European stage-theory to delegitimize anticolonial revolts as premature #expands (0.95) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 527