India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

I believed that it would be unwise to put economics and civilisational priorities in walled gardens because the relationship between the two was too close to risk a silo-based approach.

These questions led me to the view that it was important for people to understand that Bharat as a civilisation was a reality, and reducing that reality and near-unbroken lived experience to a mere talking point to score brownie points over one another was more a proof of expediency than real conviction in the values the Indic civilisation stood for.

Therefore, my objectives were: 1. to continuously apply such a framework to my own personal journey in understanding the Indic civilisation on its own terms and using its own lexicon, warts and all; and 2. to extend the application of this framework in a concrete manner to my area of competence, namely the law, and more specifically to the Constitution, given its manifest importance to the polity of Bharat.

As a result, I started reading the works of scholars, such as Aníbal Quijano, Walter D. Mignolo, Sylvia Wynter, Ramón Grosfoguel, Catherine E. Walsh and Nelson Maldonado-Torres, among others. Dr. Viswanathan also put me in touch with another brilliant scholar of decoloniality, Ms Sumita Ambasta, who introduced me to literature that shed light on colonial language policies, and the writings of Arturo Escobar whose perspectives on the relationship between coloniality and ‘development’ is a must-read for development professionals in Bharat.

It was this sense of superiority, which the European coloniser treated as both a divinely ordained right and scientific fact, that led to the creation of racial hierarchies the world over. Coloniality reshaped the very concept of history and time through the creation of constructs as ‘modernity’ and ‘rationality’, terms which are loosely used in contemporary everyday conversations without knowledge of their colonial origins.

The more I read the literature on coloniality, the more I realised that there was a clear and inadvertent handshake between such literature and the works of Dr. Balagangadhara and Dr. De Roover on colonial consciousness. This

Also, the framework gave me the opportunity to call out the double standards that were being applied to decolonial movements in other decolonised societies on the one hand, and the Indic movement for cultural decolonisation and reclamation of its civilisational identity on the other. While the former has received serious and positive attention, the latter has been branded illiberal, xenophobic and lacking in historical basis. This hypocrisy needed to be called out. By

Age of Discovery, marked by Christopher Columbus’ expedition in 1492, and the reshaping of Bharat through a British-made constitution— the Government of India Act of 1919.

Coloniality, Civilisation, and Constitution

Given the abundance of stand-alone literature on the subjects of the first two sections, I have limited the scope of the discussion only to the extent it serves as the foundation for my examination of the Constitution for coloniality/colonial consciousness in the third section of this book and its sequels.

This means that every society should identify the forms of colonisation it has been subjected to, and outline for itself the contours of its decoloniality.

This section also traces the origins of seemingly universal constructs, such as ‘toleration’, ‘secularism’ and ‘humanism’, to Christian political theology. Their subsequent role in subverting the indigenous Indic consciousness through a secularised and universalised Reformation is examined.

Further, I have explained as to why postcolonialism in Bharat has served to entrench both forms of colonialities and must, therefore, give way to decoloniality.

The object of this section is to demonstrate that the ‘civilising’ and evangelising tendency of the European coloniser, that emanates from his coloniality, impacted the politico-legal infrastructure established by him in Bharat, including a constitutional form of government.

The first sequel will cover the crucial period between 1920 and 1951, when the Constitution of independent Bharat was framed and adopted, and amended for the first time in 1951. The second sequel will tentatively cover the period between 1952 and 1977.

however, it is certainly intended to be a starting point from a decolonial perspective so that Indic consciousness can replace colonial consciousness.

The First Voyage, chromolithograph by L. Prang & Co., published by The Prang Educational Co., Boston, 1893: A scene of Christopher Columbus bidding farewell to the Queen of Spain on his departure for the New World, 3 August 1492.

due to my emphasis on the fundamental rights of the Deity as: 1. a ‘person’ within the meaning of Article 25(1) of the Constitution; and 2. the very fount of the religious practices observed by and in the Sabarimala Temple, which lent the temple a denominational/‘sampradayic’2 character within the Dharmic fold under Article 26.

The more predictable jibes like ‘patriarchal’ and the like did not pique my attention much given the nature of the matter and the dramatis personae involved, apart from the sloganeering hue such words have acquired over the years instead of standing for the genuine concerns and issues they were meant to represent in the first place.

What I found most interesting was that those who disagreed with me used words, such as ‘orthodox’, ‘traditional’, ‘anti-rational’, and ‘anti-modern’, to caricature my position.4 To be clear, I was intrigued not by the criticism itself, which was expected, but by the use of such words as pejoratives to criticise a position that supported a religious institution.

remove the colonial lens while trying to assess and evaluate the constitutionality of indigenous and Indic religious practices, such as the one followed by the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple.

For the first time, I understood, based on the literature on the subject that terms, such as ‘modern’ and ‘rational’, which we use casually and, dare I say, unthinkingly in our daily conversations about the contemporary relevance of Indic social and religious practices as well as in relation to the societal structures of Bharat—had deeper meanings that could be traced to their European colonial origins.7 The judgement and sanctimony inherent in the use of such terms became apparent to me after my exposure to coloniality.

Colonisation, as understood by scholars, refers to a process or phenomenon by which people belonging to a nation establish colonies in other societies while retaining their bonds with the parent nation, and exploit the colonised societies to benefit the parent nation and themselves.

At least four forms of colonialism are recognised, namely exploitation colonialism, settler colonialism, surrogate colonialism and internal colonialism,

‘Coloniality’ refers to the fundamental element or thought process that informs the policy of colonialism and advances the subtler end goal of colonisation, namely colonisation of the mind through complete domination of the culture and worldview of the colonised society.

In short, coloniality is the fount of the policy of colonialism that results in colonisation, whose ultimate objective is to mould the subjugated society in the image of the coloniser. Therefore, implicit in the use of coloniality is ‘cultural coloniality’, which represents its all-encompassing character.

The origins of Eurocentrism spawned by European colonialism and coloniality have been traced to what has been referred to as ‘the Age of Discovery/Exploration’ in the fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus set out in 1492 to ‘discover’ the ‘New World’, namely the non-Christian world.11

marked the beginning of European colonisation and heralded a new chapter in European history, which led to the emergence of new conceptions of time, space and subjectivity that had tectonic implications for that continent and, most importantly, for ‘others’, that is, the rest of the world.

The Age of Discovery significantly overlapped with The Renaissance, which was followed by ‘The Reformation’, leading to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which was, in turn, followed by what is treated as the zenith of European civilisation—‘The Age of Enlightenment/Reason’ and ‘The Industrial Revolution’.

These ‘modern’ ideas have significantly affected and altered conceptions of nature, universe, human agency, religion, race, language, political organisation of societies, the nature of State, its relationship with religion, conceptions of law and human rights, treatment of genders, science, notions of development and more across the globe.

Since all of this has been traced by scholars to Columbus’ expedition of 1492, the expedition and its significance for world history has engendered a raging debate.

One school of thought, the ‘modern’ school, believes that Columbus’ voyage was and must be seen as a ‘glorious and heroic achievement’ that marked the beginning of the Christian West’s ‘destiny’ to ‘liberate’ non-Christian indigenous societies from their wretched existence.

The second school of thought, the ‘postmodern’ school, is seen as a response to Europe’s claims over modernity and rejects the grand narratives woven around it. However, this school’s opposit...

The third school, namely the postcolonial school, which enjoys a significant overlap with postmodern thought and even draws from it, too rejects the universalising claims of Eurocentrism albeit in the political realm; however, it uses the very same tools as the col...

In other words, the postcolonial school certainly changes the content of the discussion but not the terms of engagement or the framework of the discussion, having imbibed the European penchant for universalisation.14 The limitations of the postcolonial school, among other things, lie in its inability to see and comprehend the continued contemporary impact of colonial structures even after decolonisation.

However, where the decolonial school differs from postcolonial thought is its identification of the element of ‘coloniality’, which, according to it, informed European colonisation that began with the Age of Discovery.

coloniality gave birth to the ‘cultural complex’ of ‘modernity’ and ‘rationality’, apart from the ‘modern’ categories of religion and race.

Decolonial scholars have gone a step further to claim that while postcolonialism is a state of affairs, decoloniality is a state of mind just as coloniality is. These finer aspects will be discussed in some detail in the ensuing portions of this section of the book after the examination of coloniality as conceptualised and understood by the decolonial school.

It is these foundational premises of the decolonial school that warrant attention and make its understanding imperative for decolonised societies which are still grappling with coloniality.

Interestingly, decolonial scholarship seems to have emanated from Latin America, which has contributed significantly to the understanding of coloniality and the response to it.

And yet, Asia is not at the forefront of decolonial scholarship, which could indicate a deep-seated, continuing and unconscious coloniality in Asian societies, notwithstanding the survival of their cultural systems. This, as we shall see, is attributable to the predominance of postcolonial thought in Asia and the Middle East, especially Bharat and Palestine.

However, this should not have limited voices from Asia or voices that discuss Asia from capturing the diversity and peculiarity of their colonial experience better so as to contribute to the still-nascent pool of decolonial thought.

This is precisely why societies and civilisations of Asia can and must craft for themselves their own definitions of coloniality and decoloniality without being fettered or limited in any manner by the experience and conclusions of the Americas and Africa.

almost the entirety of the Americas and close to half of Africa have been converted to the religion of the European coloniser (and about 40 per cent to Islam), this is not the case with vast swathes of Asia. In stark contrast, the practise of precolonial faith systems by quite a few countries of Asia, such as Bharat, makes them ‘living indigenous civilisations’ to a significant extent.

Given the huge Christian settler colonial populations in the Americas in particular, the numbers may not even be conducive for indigenous peoples even if they wanted to revert to the faith of their ancestors. And if this were not enough, pragmatic considerations, such as the highly organised and evangelical nature of Christianity and its status as a global majority, have a direct and real bearing on the ability of any erstwhile non-Christian colonised society to reclaim and return to its roots.

In my view, the Critical Theory of Race (popularly acronymised as CRT for Critical Race Theory), in some ways, may be treated as the precursor to decolonial thought.15 This could explain the reasons for the scholarship on coloniality being centred on race,

To be fair, this could also be because decolonial thought is relatively recent and, therefore, the Asian perspective, in particular the Indian perspective, could do a lot to address this reticence of the existing scholarship on coloniality in relation to religion without being dissuaded by it.

In fact, the active local resistance offered by the indigenous faith systems of Asia, in particular Bharat, to coloniality and its underlying evangelical motivations makes the study of coloniality all the more relevant and critical to their existence and survival.

After all, the aims and modus operandi of European colonisation were similar, and were tempered only by the local conditions and the degree of resistance offered by different indigenous societies. This could at least present contemporary Asian societies with a decent starting point in their respective original decolonial journeys.

As stated earlier, this question will be discussed in some detail in this section after discussing the various facets of coloniality, including its OET and racial foundations.