India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

Every society’s subjective experience leads to the formation of its own views on ontology, which ultimately forms the basis of its epistemology and theology, including its social organisation. In this regard, broadly speaking, the ontology of Indic consciousness rests, among other things, on the belief in the laws of karma and rebirth which manifest in its knowledge production structures, its faith systems, its relationship with nature and its societal structures. The Christianisation of Indic consciousness through the use of a secularised Christian framework has impacted not just the external edifice of the Indic society but has also pushed to extinction specific groups, communities and ways of life, which have long preserved the indigenous ontology upon which the civilisation was built. Specifically, the application of the Protestant Reformation’s hatred of clergy to Brahmins and ‘Brahminism’, who the Christian coloniser and accompanying missionary groups categorically reviled as impediments to the Christianisation of Bharat, has ensured that a significant cross-section of the native society today, regardless of stated political or ideological proclivities (Left, Right or Centre) now shares the coloniser’s hatred of Brahmins and ‘Brahminism’. This shared hatred of an Indic sub-identity based on colonial versions of Bharat’s history and consciousness is proof of coloniality at work.