India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

Critically, De Roover points out that this model of Christian reconstruction of indigenous faith systems and societies has been secularised, and goes by the name of ‘secularism’, wherein the colonial framework with its distinct religious/scriptural origin is projected as ‘universal’ for all societies and cultures.

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.

When an internal conversation among natives happens within a framework rooted in foreign consciousness, which is accepted as being universally valid without its premise being examined or critiqued, it effectively proves the deep-seated entrenchment of colonial consciousness.

This book will address this question by suggesting that caste, as we know it today, is not in fact some unchanged survival of ancient India, not some single system that reflects a core civilizational value, not a basic expression of Indian tradition. Rather, I will argue that caste (again, as we know it today) is a modern phenomenon, that it is, specifically, the product of a historical encounter between India and Western colonial rule.

But I am suggesting that it was under the British that ‘caste’ became a single term capable of expressing, organizing, and above all ‘systematizing’ India’s diverse forms of social identity, community, and organization.

It is also evident from the literature discussed here that even education was used as a means to further the Christian civilising and reformist intent, since the nexus between education, language and religious conversion was thoroughly understood by the Christian establishment right from the inclusion of the first Missionary Clause in the Charter of 1698.

The Hindoos would, in time, become teachers of English themselves; and the employment of our language in public business, for which every political reason remains in full force, would, in the course of another generation, make it very general throughout the country. There is nothing wanting to the success of this plan, but the hearty patronage of Government. If they wish it to succeed, it can and must succeed. The introduction of English in the administration of the revenue, in judicial proceedings, and in other business of Government, wherein Persian is now used, and the establishment of free-schools for instruction in this language, would insure its diffusion over the country, for the reason already suggested, that the interest of the natives would induce them to acquire it.

The first school, namely the Orientalist school, believed in amalgamating indigenous forms of knowledge production, content and pedagogy with the European system, which led to the establishment of the Benares Sanskrit College and the Calcutta Madrassah, so as to co-opt Indians into the British administrative structure. The second school, namely the Evangelical/Anglicist school, led by Charles Grant and other like-minded individuals, such as William Wilberforce, associated the English language with Christianity and Western civilisation.

The three books which are most common in all the schools, and which are used indiscriminately by the several castes, are the Ramayannm, Maha Bharata and Bhagavata; but the children of manufacturing class of people have, in addition to the above, books peculiar to their own religious tenets, such as the Nagalingayna, Kutha Vishvakurma, Poorana, Kamalesherra Ralikamahata; and those who wear the lingum, such as the Buwapoorana Raghavan-kimkanya, Keeruja Gullana, Unabhavamoorta, Chenna Busavaswara Poorana, Jurilagooloo, etc., which are all considered sacred, and are studied with a view of subserving their several religious creeds.

One of the reasons that this letter is educative is that it informs us that at least until 1823, indigenous consciousness and epistemology had survived 12 centuries of genocidal campaigns by Middle Eastern coloniality. In stark contrast, in less than two centuries, European coloniality has made deep inroads which Middle Eastern coloniality could not.

Therefore, in adopting a decolonial approach, as much as it is important to identify the role of the coloniser in altering the state of affairs as it existed prior to his arrival, it is equally important to acknowledge the role of the colonised in aiding the spread and entrenchment of the coloniser’s colonial consciousness, especially after having achieved decolonisation or ‘independence’.

I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education.

It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.

The hypocrisy of the coloniser is writ large in the fact that Indic scriptures were being judged on the anvils of European philosophy and science instead of applying the very same standards of science and reason to the European coloniser’s religion and its scripture.

Also, when questioning the practical value of native learning and using the market as a test of its utility, the Christian coloniser turned a blind eye to the fact that knowledge of native OET was rendered unmarketable as a consequence of the alteration in the native worldview and way of life caused by the very factum of colonisation. Instead, he conveniently concludes that such learning had always been futile since it lacked intrinsic value. In any case, the Christian coloniser never deemed it fit to ask as to what was the market utility of being trained in Christian scripture. On the contrary, the British establishment was happy to financially support the Christian establishment in Bharat, which included pensionary benefits, using revenues earned from Bharat.

Given that the Indian State as well as the colonialised indigenous native are only too happy to wear the secularised Christian framework as a badge of honour, even if Bharat does not convert to Christianity, it would be equally bad or perhaps worse if Indic OET systems are completely Christianised; and 2. Conventional proselytisation has effectively alienated large parts of Bharat from the Indic consciousness and has, in fact, turned a significant cross-section of Bharat against it.

What is worse is that the conduct of the British in putting down the Rebellion had religious bigotry written all over it. While the Muslims among the rebels were sewed in pigskins smeared with pork fat before execution, after which their bodies were burnt, the Hindus were forced to defile themselves by consuming beef.

The role played by the European coloniser’s utter contempt for the natives, their religion and race must not be ruled out as a contributing factor to the barbarity and savagery meted out to the rebels and the civilian population.

And surely, my Lords, we ought to look forward to the time when, under the providence of God, India shall form no exception to the multitude of countries in which truth has prevailed against falsehood, and the Gospel has triumphed over idolatry and superstition, so that in the end it may appear why a remote country like England should have been allowed to have dominion over the vast territory of India’ [emphasis added].

If anything, the word ‘secular’ must always be understood as ‘Christian secular’, since the Christian worldview was inherent to the colonial infrastructure. Therefore, the transfer of territories and government of British India to the Crown under the Act marked the beginning of a direct Christian ‘civilising’ phase for Bharat, which was partially held back until then due to the mercantile pragmatism of the Company.

distinguished between interference with the religion of the natives and the proselytising work carried out by missionaries in Bharat. The latter was not seen as an infraction of the former. This convenient distinction allowed the British coloniser to continue with the façade of neutrality and was further proof of the actual meaning of Christian toleration.

That they were utterly convinced of the inextricability of conversion to Christianity and moral improvement of the natives, underscores the Christianisation of morality and secularisation of Christianity at the same time.

Since the foundational document is the Montford Report, those who wish to understand the origins of independent Bharat’s constitutional framework must read the 256-page Report which, among other things, is a one-stop shop of sorts to understand the evolution of the British politico-legal and administrative infrastructure in Bharat.

We should look on India not as a temporary possession, but as one which is to be maintained permanently, until the natives shall in some future age have abandoned most of their superstitions and prejudices, and become sufficiently enlightened to frame a regular government for themselves, and to conduct and preserve it.’

Therefore, calling a nation ‘civilised’ is a secularised way of labelling it a ‘Christian nation’ or a Europeanised nation that has organised itself on the lines of a nation-state.

That would be a good decolonial beginning since it is well-known that scholarships, such as Rhodes, were typically employed by the Christian European coloniser to groom and co-opt natives into his worldview and values.

The objective was that such Westernised natives would return to their countries of origin to ‘reform’ their fellow natives by instilling respect for ‘constitutional morality’ and ‘civilisation’.

One of these changes was to have a constitution to prove a nation’s civilised credentials as a nation of laws. For instance, Gong points out that Japan adopted a constitutional form of government with representative institutions to impress the West and to convince it of its eligibility for membership in the international order.

This practice continues to date in Bharat as Indian courts continue to refer to and rely on English common law to distil principles of natural justice, which are widely applied to a range of legal issues.

This Hindu nationality was to a certain extent disturbed by the Mohammedan invasion and Moghul rule, but the overwhelming majority of Moslems are the descendants of Hindus who embraced Mohammedanism, and as such they have retained the language and customs of their respective regions, and are still influenced by the immemorial Hindu culture except in religious matters.

The civilization of India ‘has many features which differentiate from that of all other regions of the world, while they are common to the whole country in a degree sufficient to justify its treatment as a unit in the history of human social and intellectual development’ (V.A. Smith, Early History of India). So intense is the feeling of unity throughout India that any attempt to divide the country into independent States would provoke indignant remonstrances. In fact, so deep is this feeling that even a proposal to create racial Provinces is regarded by some Indians as a malicious manoeuvre at disruption.

The allegation that India is not a nation is therefore untenable and unjustifiable.

In political science, ‘A nation is no longer what it had been in the ancient world, a progeny of common ancestors, or the aboriginal product of the a particular religion, a result of merely physical and material causes, but a moral and political being; not the creation of geographical or physiolo...

But to require races of India to coalesce into a nation with one religion and one tongue, is midsummer madness. It would revive the medieval idea of one Empire, one people and one church, which engendered the despotisms of the blackest dye.

On the contrary, the conditions and capacity, postulated by Lord Acton, exist in a remarkable degree in India. if such federal organization has not hitherto been evolved in India it must be attributed to the neglect and the freezing and sterilizing influences of the Indian Bureaucracy with its excessive centralization, resulting from its rigid methods and notions of trusteeship.

India is not an infant nation, not a primitive people, but the eldest brother in the family of man, noted for her philosophy and for being the home of religions that console half of mankind.

Left to themselves there can be no doubt that Indians are capable of solving their Domestic Problems on democratic principles within a short time. It must not be easily assumed that Orientals are wedded to autocracy. The truth is that democracy is older than autocracy in India. Our ancestors were fully accustomed to democratic institutions. The great Epic of India not only mentions, but describes Indian democracies, and the Buddhist literature fully testifies to their existence in those early days.

The purpose of placing Rai’s pamphlet before the readers in the context of the discussion at hand was to show that in 1919, that is, after close to 84 years of introduction of Macaulay’s education policy, the awareness of Bharat’s civilisational character and history was still alive, which brings Rai’s position closer to that of historians of his time, such as Radhakumud Mookerji, and others.

Importantly, Rai drew attention to the existence of democratic and republican institutions in Bharat much before the arrival of both the Middle Eastern and European colonisers. As one of the leading lights of the Home Rule Movement, Rai’s distinction between Bharat as a civilisation and Europe’s construct of a nation indicates that at least until 1919, those who fought for this country’s decolonisation, even if gradual, were aware of its roots and had not been fully colonialised.

The literature also demonstrates that the Government of India Act of 1919 was not merely the product of a clamour for self-government within Bharat in lieu of its services in the First World War; it was equally a product of the internationalisation of standard of civilisation, and hence Christian colonial consciousness, through the League of Nations. It is clear that at least until 1919, the standard of civilisation, which emanates from Christian European coloniality, was in vogue and directly impacted Bharat’s organisation as a political entity.

The fervent hope is that readers would, at the very least, become aware of their own preconceived notions about Bharat brought about by unconscious and conscious coloniality before holding forth on the need for ‘reform’ or the virtues of ‘secularism’, and instead revisit their biases with respect to terms, such as ‘traditional’.

‘Reform’ in the context of Bharat must be decolonial reform as opposed to a colonialising one.

Hopefully, some day transformative constitutionalism will acquire a decolonial hue in Bharat, thereby strengthening indigeneity instead of shaming and silencing it through the unending and secularised Protestant project of ‘reform’.