India still needs to
clean up the dirt of colonial mentality from its psyche….
This idea of any individual of a particular race is superior
to any other is contrary to Sanathan Dharma we Indians believe in, where God is
everywhere and is present in every living creature. If that is the case then it
is impossible for one to be superior to any other just by the virtue of
birth. This is defies any rational
thinking. I cannot speak for indigenous
population of South America who were overrun by the Spanish or about
Africa. As far as Asia is concerned,
long before the continent became a colony, its civilization was highly
developed with distinctive culture and religion, as a multifaceted
manifestation of Sanathan Dharma. If not anything else, it is because of this
idea of dharma only, it is impossible for an ordinary Indian to believe in that
kind of race superiority.
This does not mean that colonial mentalities do not exist.
It does and even today is very much prevalent in these societies and contrary
to all rationalization the acceptance is complete. For India, after the British
conquest, its imperial power was too strong to be effectively resisted; the
colonized population often had no other immediate option than to accept the
rule of the foreigners as an inescapable reality of life. This was no religious or philosophical
justification but rather total resignation to fate. British ruled India but did not mix with the
population. It gave its citizen and all white people a privileged position in
the society. As the time progressed the
Indians began to associate the British ways as something which leads to
successes. Not because they are superior but the simple fact that following those
ways one can easily gain material success and power in the society. It was a
kind of a necessary compromise for material success in life. It is because of
this English as a language became accepted in Indian societies, people started
playing cricket, British education system and so many others were absorbed. India has always been a society where any
kind of external influence got absorbed into the great cauldron of color. The
British ways was just another shade.
However British wanted to create Macaulay's Children out of
all Indian people i.e. people born of Indian ancestry who adopt Western culture
as a lifestyle and believing them to be superior. Religion was one of the ways,
which was extremely effective in South America or North America. Converted
Christians virtually worked for free, devoted and gave their life. This
approach did not work in India, so British took more direct approach through
the education system . It worked to an extent and they did manage to create
what we call a ‘babu’ class who rejected Indian ways and glorified the British
ways. Nonetheless some cast off this notion, instead went to create a new India
by assimilating the scientific outlook, rationality of western education and
classical Indian thought. These were the intellectual giants of the 19th
century India.
Post Independence, after spending the initial years consolidating the
freedom and searching for self identity, India started to shed the colonialism
culture one by one. The symbolic ones like reverting back to original city name
from colonial names , like to Kolkata from Calcutta or Mumbai from Bombay were
the easy ones. The difficult ones are the ones which have been intricately
wrapped within the Indian psyche. Like in the Indian university system Indian
professors always look towards the west for approval instead of organizing
themselves and create a merit based peer recognition structure or the works of
any great Indian, in almost any field needs to be accepted by the west first
before getting recognition at home. The very subtle things, akin to wearing a
suit and tie in a tropical country or
the common notion
of greeting ‘warmly’ or ‘warm regards’
in mails and letters in India (a rip off from the English tradition which is a
cold country and where these kinds of greetings do have a specific meaning). It
is still a problem that top government posts in India go to phd’s from MIT,
HARVARD, Oxford , Cambridge and not to somebody who has been brought up in the Indian education system. Indian
college students study books written in UK or US whereas in America or England,
students study largely ,except exceptions, from books written by authors from
their own country. These are indirect
influence but in longer terms they are devastating for the induced society. A sense of default acceptance of the
superiority of western education evolves, degrading the national intellect to
servility. Then it is no more about the material success in life rather
colonial mentality with all its bells and whistles.
Over last two decades the world
has also changed dramatically because of the momentous revolution brought by
Information Technology. Globalization has become a reality and in the front of
exploitation, the direct rule of colonialism has been replaced by the
meandering hegemony of the foreign exchange rates. Modern foreign currency exchange
rate mechanism is the central tool that has been supplying endless resource of
cheap labor for economic growth; similar to what was almost a hundred years ago
came from the colonized country. Unlike
Australia, India being a non white, ex British colony, naturally is on the
wrong end of the currency exchange rate dipole.
Things are changing and changing
for good. Today’s youth do not possess the idealism of the generation of
60-70’s but they do have a strong sense of practicability, fierceness in their
sense of freedom and utter ruthlessness in their dealings. Let alone accepting
superiority of anyone, they are out there to beat you by any means they can. I
believe that this will not stay long and will not suppress the ambition of
today’s youth. In the following years, if India manages to stay united as a
country, then they will figure a way out of this tool of exploitation and turn
the tables. China is already doing that, in its own very creative way.
Over time the colonial mentality will go away and melt into
historical time. Thinking this to be strategic advantage, British probably still want to keep that sense
alive by proposing, sponsoring organizations resembling their lost kingdom as
the commonwealth, like a reminder that I ruled you. Throughout the history of mankind no conquered
citizens has harbored a sense of intellectual inferiority ceding to the subjugators,
for generations, even when after the conquerors have been evicted away from the
land. Time obliterates everything and if
artificially extended, major destruction
sets in wiping away everything setting the ground afresh for a new beginning.
The question is how fast can get rid of it? Faster it goes; rapid
will be India’s development into a proud nation with a thriving economy.
Getting rid of colonial mentality is the acceptance of British rule of India as
just another story in India’s thousand years of civilization. On the
other side for the British, it should be a national guilt for them, similar to
modern Germany, for all the systematic murders, atrocities and exploitation
they did in India and every other colony they ruled. A country becoming rich at others expense not
through their own resourcefulness, hard work and honor.
