India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

in stark contrast to the Christian secularism of Europe which protects Christian institutions from State interference. In other words, the coloniality of the Indian State is evidenced by the fact that as opposed to preserving and respecting the space of Indic consciousness, which would have been consistent with the policy of Christian toleration and secularism of the coloniser that accorded primacy to Christianity, the Indian State acts as the successor of the coloniser in its stepmotherly treatment of native consciousness.

Article 25(1) of the Constitution guarantees to all persons the freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate ‘religion’ subject to public order, morality, health and other provisions of that part of the Constitution.

While this power is available to the Indian State in relation to institutions of all faiths, thus far it has chosen to exercise this power primarily in relation to Hindu institutions.

the State or more often than not, constitutional Courts, would determine what constituted ‘essential’ aspects of a religion despite professing to be secular bodies with no institutionalised training in the OET of any faith.

religious versus secular divide was conceived of in the Christian faith to limit the scope of State interference in matters of religion, which, in Bharat, has yielded diametrically opposite results particularly with respect to Indic faith systems.

native faith systems are not fully bound by scripture and have evolved as much through custom, practice and context flummoxed the Christian European coloniser just as much as it seems to confound contemporary Indian institutions, including the judiciary.

this colonialised understanding of Indic faith systems forms the bedrock of the eternal project of ‘reform’ of the ‘Hindu religion’ and society in ‘independent’ Bharat.

Dr. S.N. Balagangadhara12 is of the view that be it ‘Hinduism’ ‘Buddhism’, or ‘Jainism’, each of these is a colonial construct in an empirical sense, but not in the epistemological sense. In other words, the existence of Dharmic OET systems or sampradayas obviously predates the Christian European coloniser, while only their reconstruction as ‘religions’ in the Christian sense is attributable to him.

Indians learned to use English-language words (‘religion’, ‘revelation’, ‘God’, ‘worship’, ‘priest’, ‘idolatry’), without having access to the background theology that related these terms to each other in a systematic way.

This has made it much more difficult for Indic consciousness and its way of life to be understood on its own terms without suffering labels, such as ‘ancient’, ‘traditional’, ‘conservative’, and the like.

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.

Dirks’ unequivocal and extensive identification of the role of Christian missionaries as the British coloniser’s go-to ethnographers of Bharat and how they saw the ‘caste system’, in particular Brahmins, as the chief impediment to the Christianisation of Bharat.

‘colonial’ ethnography was in fact written by missionaries, who observed Indian society more closely than did British officials, but experienced it in relation to their primary concern with Christian conversion.

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

impart to the Hindoos our language; afterwards through that medium, to make them acquainted with our easy literary compositions, upon variety of subjects ; and, let not the idea hastily excite derision, progressively with the simple elements of our arts, our philosophy and religion. These acquisitions would silently undermine, and at length subvert, the fabric of error; and all the objections that may be apprehended against Such a change, are, it is confidently believed, capable of a solid answer.

Grant’s views are the perfect response to those that contend that language is merely a medium of instruction or communication and that it must not be associated with any particular religion.

the singular and responsible position which England holds as a Christian nation ruling over a nation of heathens.

in all schools to which aid is given by the Government the Bible shall be read—not commented upon for its doctrines, but read for its facts.

all connection on the part of the Government with the rites and customs of an idolatrous religion be entirely abolished, even if the object of such connection be simply the preservation of order; that those lands which have hitherto been employed for idolatrous purposes, and of which I believe the Company have become trustees, should be made over entirely to the Natives themselves, so that this nation may be altogether released from any participation in things which are detestable in themselves, and scandalous to the reputation of a Christian country.

no

native public employee would be allowed to observe the rules of his caste during the course of public employment,

British government should not shy away from calling itself a Christian government

proclaiming the superiority of the Christian religion as well as it being the basis for the ‘best civilisation’. He also elaborated on the meaning of ‘neutrality’ as follows:

demand of the petitioners is confined to what is strictly moderate and reasonable. What they require is the assertion of the most unbounded religious liberty in India;

‘neutrality’ is meant that their characters are to exhibit that happy indifference as to Christianity which shall impress on the heathen mind the conviction that they care not whether they are Christians or heathens, then I believe that such neutrality would be fatal and false to the religion we profess, and that ultimately it would destroy the empire that has been entrusted to us.

the only sense in which neutrality as to the Christian religion is to be admitted into the future Government of India; and I think it the more important to declare this, because I cannot but feel that there have been in times past many instances in which neutrality was understood to mean carelessness about the truth of Christianity and a fear to avow in the face of heathendom that we were ourselves firm believers in the Christian revelation

the word ‘secular’ must always be understood as ‘Christian secular’, since the Christian worldview was inherent to the colonial infrastructure.

‘Lords Spiritual’

being the Bishops of the Church of England, numbering 26

no attempt on the part of the British government to conceal or skirt around its Christian identity and the foundations of its infrastructure in Christian political theology.

a Parliament which legally provided (and still does) for the presence of 26 Bishops representing Christianity was a secular Parliament.

‘responsible government’ as opposed to ‘self-government’ within the British Empire was being proposed, to gradually ‘educate’ and ‘prepare’ natives for self-governance without losing any of their love for the British imperial commonwealth.

purpose of the proposed politico-legal framework was to co-opt the native into the coloniser’s worldview.

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.

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.

The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League.

League of Nations

must stand as the living evidence of the united power of Christian civilization to make this treaty a real treaty of peace [emphases added].

Christian Western powers of the world arrogated to themselves the power to determine who could aspire for statehood and who could not, depending on the Standard of Civilisation laid down by them.

The Chinese Empire, the Siamese Kingdom and the Japanese Empire, all had to transition to being ‘nation-states’ in order for them to be accepted by the international society.

How come the middle Eastern Arab countries were judged differently?

because no one at all acquainted with the principles of the Christian religion can doubt the extraordinary affinity between those principles as originally expressed and the aspirations and intentions which under-lie the present scheme for a League of Nations.

Christianity

embarked on the most momentous scheme of being supernational and proclaiming the idea of supernationalism.

It is a great mistake to suppose that the division and heresies of the early years of the Christian Church were merely about theological doctrines. They had behind them national movements.

Christianity itself claims to constitute a tie between nations which shall be closer than the ties of blood and race.

I desire nothing more than that the whole divided forces of the Christian Church should be brought together, so

that they may speak with a united voice and the nations might feel what the Christian religion really meant [emphasis added].

he saw the League of Nations as an instrumentality of ushering in that elusive creature called ‘Christian Peace’ (Pax Christiana) in the world:

There is less antagonism between the creeds of India than there is between the various sects of Christianity in England.

overwhelming majority of Moslems are the descendants of Hindus who embraced Mohammedanism,