India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

The aspiration of the colonised to be sovereign nation-states on European lines has been attributed to European coloniality1 owing to close to two centuries of unbroken colonialism.

entrenched in colonised societies through the politico-legal infrastructure of European colonisers

In fact, the early introduction of colonial education systems in colonised societies and the replacement of indigenous epistemologies and their structures ensured that coloniality informed their present, shaped their ideas of the future and, critically, coloured their vision of the past.

Therefore, all that the colonialised native elites sought by way of ‘independence’ was the agency to be able to write their own futures but using the ideas, rules, tools and institutions of the erstwhile coloniser, which were designed for top-down imposition on a conquered and subjugated people in order to ‘civilise’ them.4

the global spread of colonial politico-economic ideas and institutions, may have made it inconceivable and infeasible for colonised societies to revert to their precolonial forms of political and social organisation.

In today’s telecom parlance, this can be compared with the situation of a mobile network operator, who, in the interest of interoperability, must comply with the technological standards laid down by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), failing which, the former’s mobile phone users cannot interact with the users of other telecom operators that comply with the ETSI standards.

given the omnipresence of European politico-economic and cultural coloniality, perhaps the only viable option available to the newly decolonised societies

first category, those societies that had a strong sense of indigenous consciousness, or whatever remained of it after centuries of colonialism, sought to compensate for continuing

second category, those societies that were helmed by colonialised native elites became crucibles for a constant struggle between such elites and the native masses that had been relegated to the status of ‘subalterns’, and pushed to the margins of the process of nation-building.

in the spheres of political thought, environment, language, religion, law, gender, economics, production of knowledge, education and even popular culture.

Western imperialism—which inherited and expanded the legacy of coloniality.

Western imperialism with other cultures the same as that of colonialism, namely ‘colonisation of the imagination of the dominated’, it has proved to be vastly more successful than colonialism in creating well-networked global power structures and totalising sub-frameworks that have sustained and advanced coloniality.7 This is in stark contrast to colonialism which was much more territorial.

Until the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, that is, even after close to four decades of decolonisation, there was not enough rigorous scholarship that made sense of the nature of colonial power and its continuing impact on the life and polity of decolonised nations.

Even those who claimed to be non-aligned, could not remain uninfluenced by the Cold War and its dynamics.

In other words, colonisation is the process, colonialism is the policy and coloniality is the mindset or the thought that underpins or drives colonialism.

Not only did they analyse the problem, they offered an option/alternative, namely decoloniality, which moved away from the model presented by the postmodern and postcolonial schools.

Decoloniality has been described as the movement for reclamation and restoration of indigeneity and its subjectivities.

it is important to understand the true nature of coloniality, its motivations, underpinnings, invisible yet ever-present devices and its impact on the entirety of indigenous worldviews. Not only would this help us understand the ‘why’ of decoloniality, it would also help us make sense of the ‘how’, rather a plurality of them.

Quijano was of the view that race was central to European coloniality and that there was an inextricable link between European/Western coloniality and modernity/rationality.

European colonisers and the colonised societies of Latin America was one of ‘direct political, social and cultural domination’, which he called ‘Eurocentered colonialism’.

The European coloniser consciously believed in the ‘biological and structural superiority’ of his race, which, in the mind of the coloniser, distinguished him from the colonised.

This evidences the use of scientism by the coloniser to perpetuate, normalise and legitimise stereotypes about the colonised in order to justify discrimination.

coloniser subtly co-opted dominant groups or the elite from the colonised society into the colonial power structure to gradually wean them away from the rest of their people. This was done by inventing pseudo-scientific racial theories to create fissures in the social structures of the native society, while simultaneously teaching them the ways of European culture.

introduction of the cultural complex, namely ‘European modernity/rationality’,

weaponisation of time

European coloniser and his successor, the Western imperialist, who negate and deny the histories and the lived experiences of entire civilisations from the moment of their arrival.

In a nutshell, coloniality refers to a meta phenomenon that affects the mental constitution of the colonised society and reorients its entire worldview to bring it in line with the coloniser’s by distorting, stereotyping, eliminating or acculturating the indigenous worldview.

The effect of the introduction of the modernity/rationality complex into the culture of colonised societies was that the entirety of native worldviews, especially their ontological, theological and epistemological systems, were ‘otherised’.

According to Quijano, this is where the true genius of the European coloniser lay—not in the brutal economic and political repression of the native, but in successfully projecting his way of life as the aspirational ideal.

the coloniser was not content with the co-option of only the dominant elites among the natives but was interested in converting the entire native society to his way of life.

colonised society as an economic resource to feed on, he also indulged in the systematic and extensive repression of indigenous ideas, beliefs, images and knowledge, including the systems of production of knowledge.

The cumulative effect was the deep embedding of coloniality in the consciousness of the colonised society, so much so that it started believing that it had been defeated because of its cultural moorings.

This disruption of the critical relationship between indigenous societies and nature came to affect the entire world.

Apart from the disastrous impact on nature, the universalisation of European culture made it the benchmark against which all other cultures had to judge their self-worth.

The direct and intended consequence of coloniality and the introduction of the modernity/rationality complex was the creation of supposedly universal standards for morals, ethics, religion, language, knowledge, scientific temper, political organisation, nationhood, individual rights and more—in short, culture and civilisation.

the colonial DNA of modernity and rationality will continue to actively resist and oust indigeneity.

The successful universalisation of the modernity/rationality complex is further evidenced by the fact that neither word is prefaced with ‘European’ anymore despite the entire edifice being Eurocentric.

Interestingly, in her paper titled ‘Early Modernity: The History of a Word’, Patricia Seed, who specialises in early modern and colonial European eras, traced the origins of the word ‘modern’ to the sixth century ce, when it was first used in northern Italy.

Seed revealed that around the early fourteenth century, ‘modern’ was significantly used in Dante’s Divine Comedy, wherein it was a synonym for ‘contemporary’. It was used to compare the present with the past, with the present faring poorly, making the use of ‘modern’ a veiled criticism of the present.

In a nutshell, positive connotations, such as open-mindedness, newness and relevance, were imputed to ‘modern’, and negative stereotypes, such as parochiality, outdatedness and rigidity, were associated with ‘conservative/traditional’.

Lines were drawn between the West and the East, the ‘civilised’ and the ‘primitive’, the scientific and the superstitious, the rational and the irrational, modern and traditional, historical and mythological—essentially, European and non-European.

This is because European coloniality required the entire world to share a common perspective on the entirety of human history and experience. It is precisely for this reason that it is impossible to limit the impact of European colonialism to any one particular facet of life.

This meant that the Age of Discovery also led to new conceptions of life and death, and legal agency over them. In a nutshell, European coloniality/modernity affected not just ontology, theology, epistemology and anthropology, it also birthed new notions of ethics (and therefore, affected education), and defined both politics and policy.

Christopher Columbus, a man assuredly worthy and of the highest recommendations and fitted for so great an undertaking, whom you furnished with ships and men equipped for like designs, not without the greatest hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had sailed; and they at length, with divine aid and with the utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered certain very remote islands and even mainlands that hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands.

Christopher has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities.

Hence, heartily commending in the Lord this your holy and praiseworthy purpose, and desirous that it be duly accomplished, and that the name of our Savior be carried into those regions, we exhort you very earnestly in the Lord and by your reception of holy baptism, whereby you are bound to our apostolic commands, and by the bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, enjoin strictly, that inasmuch as with eager zeal for the true faith you design to equip and despatch this expedition, you purpose also, as is your duty, to lead the peoples dwelling in those islands and countries to embrace the Christian religion;

And we make, appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and successors lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind;

Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication late sententie to be incurred ipso facto, should anyone thus contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate, degree, order, or condition, to dare, without your special permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and successors, to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the islands or mainlands, found and to be found,

According to Wynter, the treatment of ‘pagan polytheistic peoples’ as ‘idolators’ by Columbus was traceable to the Judeo-Christian perception of the world’s population being divided into: 1. Christians (who had heard and accepted the new Word of the gospel), 2. infidels like the Muslims and Jews, who, although they were monotheists, had refused the Word, and 3. those pagan polytheistic peoples who had either ignored or had not yet been preached the Word.

Entire continents and societies were associated with soullessness, requiring either enslavement or conversion, since adopting Christianity was believed to infuse a soul into the dark soulless native.