India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

by J. Sai Deepak

However, in a civilisation-state, every group is rightly interested in protecting its own identity from encroachment by other groups as well as by the State. Such being the case, to claim on the one hand that Bharat is a civilisation-state and to argue on the other that individual rights must remain supreme in a civilisation-state are logically, historically and constitutionally incongruent assertions whose impracticality, coloniality and naiveté are writ large on the face of

However, it is certainly my case that where the individual’s whim is couched as a right and has the effect of adversely affecting the interests of the group, or the interests of other groups, or the civilisational interest, the individual’s right must necessarily be traded off against the greater good. Even Europe and the West are beginning to see the light of this position given their ongoing tryst with ‘multiculturalism’ and its impact on European ‘national’ identities.

Therefore, decoloniality must confront it head-on since the goals of decoloniality are far more important for indigenous consciousness and, dare I say, the entire world, than the goals of liberalism.

Bharat follows the path of accommodation as opposed to assimilation. The former is the approach of a civilisation whereas the latter is the approach of a Europeanised nation-state. That said, while Bharat has certainly accommodated cultures and OET systems whose centres of consciousness are outside its sacred geography, such accommodation has been contingent on such cultures not seeking to annihilate Bharat’s indigenous civilisation.

no sovereign power must attempt to impose its values on others, despite its best intentions. So long as international politics is driven by Westphalian nation-state values that contain the seeds of secularised Christian European expansionism and a marked intolerant tolerance for other worldviews, no international body will succeed in securing peace for the world since international law and institutions rest on the universalisation of European provincialism. Conflict is writ large in such an approach.

While Mookerji managed to convince a good cross-section of Europeans of his time, the unfortunate contemporary reality is that colonialised Indians still subscribe to colonial assumptions about Bharat and conflate Bharat’s cultural unity with ethnocentrism and xenophobia, which demonstrates the internalisation of colonial ethnocentrism and the acceptance of its universal validity.

The great holy cities of the different provinces were regarded as sources of sanctity by all Indians alike. They were, besides, seats of the highest Sanskrit learning, or universities of the type of the medieval university of Paris.

Sarkar’s views on Bharat’s civilisation broadly resonate with those of Mookerji, the views of both these scholars were broadly reflected in An Advanced History of India (1946) jointly authored by R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychaudhuri and Kalikinkar Datta,26 and again in Majumdar’s Ancient India (1952).

This could plausibly explain the reference to ‘ancient land’ in the Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly as well as the adoption of Bharat in Article 1 of the Constitution.

That such assertion, crudely and simplistically dubbed as ‘Hindu nationalism’, is, in fact, an Indic civilisational and decolonial reawakening, somehow never occurs to those who crinkle their noses at

This is precisely why I reiterate that it is my considered position that in the interest of its survival, Bharat must employ the decolonial option, failing which its history and consciousness will always be forced to seek the validation of the very same colonialities that have historically displayed a fundamental antipathy to the very existence of the Indic consciousness.

Also, despite the distinct nationalities of European colonisers and the critical distinctions in their administration as well as their politico-legal theories, I have consciously proceeded on the established premise that European coloniality cut across European national identities.

Subsequently, in 1580, the rights of Portugal over Indian territories were assigned to Spain as the latter’s sovereignty extended to Portugal. However, since the Protestant Reformation had undermined the authority of the Catholic Church and the Pope, one of the consequences was the revolt of the Dutch against the Spanish, which resulted in the loss of Spain’s monopoly over trade in the East, particularly in Java, between 1595 and 1599. Fearing Dutch monopoly over eastern trade, the English East India Company was established. It is clear from this sequence of events that Bharat’s colonisation by Europe was not uninfluenced by the Protestant Reformation.

This is notwithstanding the fact that by the 1680s, the Company was seen as an instrument for the creation of a British Empire in Bharat, which resulted in the Charter of 1683, giving the Company the complete powers to ‘declare and make peace and war with any of the heathen nations of Asia, Africa and America within the charter limits, to raise, arm, train, and muster such military forces as seemed requisite and necessary, and to execute martial law for the defence of their forts, places, and plantations against foreign invasion or domestic insurrection or rebellion’ [emphasis added].

By 1686, the Company was permitted to frame a municipal constitution for Madras. Effectively, in less than 90 years of its entry into Bharat as a trading entity, the Company had managed to establish a framework that had the trappings of a sovereign power.

These terms were captured in a tripartite agreement entered into by the two entities and the Queen in July 1702. Under this agreement, the original company would surrender its exclusive rights by 1709, until which time both companies would trade in the name of the new amalgamated entity, renamed ‘The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies’, whose affairs would be run jointly by representatives of both. The new entity would operate under the Charter of September 1698 for the remainder of the Charter’s term. Thenceforth, all royal charters would be issued to the United Company, which became the new East India Company. Therefore, all references to the Company hereinafter are references to this entity.

Critically, the Act ‘for establishing certain Regulations for the better Management of the Affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe’, also known as ‘the Regulating Act of 1773’ and later on as the East India Company Act, was passed by the British Parliament, which clipped the political wings of the Company and allowed the Crown to spread its own.

The East India Company Act of 1784, popularly known as Pitt’s India Act after the then British Prime Minister Willam Pitt, built on the changes made in the 1773 Act and introduced a dual system whereby the newly formed Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, also known as the Board of Control, would handle the non-commercial/public/political activities of the Company, whereas the directors of the Company would be limited to handling its commercial affairs.

Critical to the discussion at hand on coloniality of the British coloniser are the provisions of the 1813 Act which related to ‘religion’, ‘morals’ and ‘education’. Reproduced herein below are the relevant excerpts of Section 33 of the 1813 Act:

This extract succinctly captures the British Christian policy of toleration as discussed in Chapter 4.16 On the one hand, it paid lip service to the right of the native inhabitants to practise ‘their religion’ freely, while on the other, it spoke of the ‘introduction’ of ‘useful knowledge’ to the natives and of their ‘religious and moral improvement’.

Sections 49–54 of the Act provided an elaborate scheme for the creation of a church establishment in the British Territories in India with the appointment of one bishop and three archdeacons for Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Further, under Section 43, a sum of not less than a lakh of rupees would be set apart annually ‘for the revival and improvement of literature, and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British Territories in India’ [emphasis added], which underscores the colonial belief that the sciences have European origins.

This was captured in the proposal put forth to the British Parliament in 1811 by William Wilberforce,22 a British politician and Protestant Christian, which required the Company to finance missionary activities in its territories.23 This proposal was defeated by both the Anglican Church and the Company for their own reasons, the former fearing the growth of Dissenting Protestantism and the latter being concerned about missionary activity interfering with commerce by alienating the native population.

The petition reinforces the deep-rooted Christian undergirding of European coloniality, a fact that was directly responsible for its unshakeable belief in its civilising global mission that has affected non-Christian systems across the world—in this case, Indic OET systems.

Frankly, this alone obviates any need for further discussion on British ‘secularism’, since any government, especially a colonial one, which approaches a colonised society with a civilising mission based on a foreign theology that is premised on the supposed barbarism and immorality of the latter’s faith and worldview, cannot reasonably expect to be deemed ‘secular’, that is, devoid of any religious identity or affiliation.

Dr. Meenakshi Jain in her scholarly work Sati: Evangelicals, Baptist Missionaries, and the Changing Colonial Discourse

leave it to the reader to ask themselves whether the approach of the missionaries in the 1800s towards Hindu society, its faith, culture and institutions is mirrored in contemporary representations of Hindus and Hinduism, both by Hindus themselves and others. If the answer is in the affirmative, would it not be reasonable to conclude that this is due to ingrained coloniality and colonialised versions of Bharat’s worldview by successive generations of ‘natives’?

For instance, Charles Grey, who had held the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in India, had hoped that the diverse legal systems of Bharat would witness gradual consolidation with the increase in the number of ‘native Christians, British and Colonial persons, and foreigners’, ‘a result which must gradually take place’. His views were quoted with approval on 13 June 183335 by Charles Grant, one of the leading proponents of Christian missionary activity and ‘social reform and education’ in Bharat

It is in many cases very remarkable. Even in the celebration of their most sacred festivals, a great change is said to be perceptible in Calcutta. Much of what used, in old times, to be distributed among beggars and Brahmins, is now, in many instances, devoted to the ostentatious entertainment of Europeans; and generally the amount expended in useless alms is stated to have been greatly curtailed.

expedient that the Government of the British possessions in India be intrusted to the said Company, under such conditions and regulations as Parliament shall enact, for the purpose of extending the commerce of this country, and of securing the good government and promoting the moral and religious improvement of the people of India

Much, I am persuaded, may be done to assimilate the different systems of law without wounding those feelings. But, whether we assimilate those systems or not, let us ascertain them; let us digest them. We propose no rash innovation; we wish to give no shock to the prejudices of any part of our subjects. Our principle is simply this; uniformity where you can have it: diversity where you must have it; but in all cases certainty.

Indians must not be expected to pay for the establishment of a religion in Bharat which they believed to be false and (b) Indians could be inspired to convert to Christianity if the Church establishment in Bharat conducted itself with Christian frugality, humility and piety.

The last defect of the Bill that he would notice was this; that notwithstanding that the two great evils under which India laboured, were—first, excessive taxation, which ground the natives down to the dust, and deprived them of all physical enjoyment, by making existence so miserable as to be a burthen in itself; and—secondly, excessive ignorance, which rendered them the prey of superstition and all its odious vices: yet the Bill was wholly silent on the two great remedies—of relief from fiscal oppression, and the spread of education—without both of which, no improvement could be hoped for in their unfortunate and miserable condition.

1833 Charter Act, as evidenced by the debates, was to lay the foundation of Christianity in Bharat through State support for conversion of the native (through a long-term Europeanisation project), with equal opportunity for evangelical work being assured to all Christian denominations.

1833 Act was but a continuum of the original clause in the 1698 Charter. According to him, the entire purpose of the colonial government was to raise the morality and character of the people, and that this goal could be achieved only through the spread of the Gospel.

If the Government undertook to attempt the conversion of the people of India, the only effect would be to raise up a great body of hypocrites, seeking to curry favour by the simulated adoption of Christianity. He considered that the Government should confine itself to its proper sphere of duty—the protection of all its subjects, including, of course, the preachers of the Gospel. The free preaching of the Gospel was all that should be secured; and as regarded its

Therefore, it can be concluded, without reservation, that this inextricable enmeshing of the Christian obligation to proselytise and the civilising attitude of the British coloniser is a matter of fact, not subjective opinion. This had a direct bearing on the coloniser’s understanding of Indic faith systems, societal structures, and on his education and language policies, as shall be seen in the next chapter.

On the contrary, indigenous/Indic OET was restructured to fit into the Christian idea of ‘religion’, which was embraced, unfortunately, by Hindu ‘reform’ movements as well. This translated to a doctrinal and scriptural approach to ‘Hinduism’, that is, only those practices which could be traced to the sacred texts of Hinduism would be tolerated by the colonial State, while the rest would be treated as superstitious and immoral, warranting State interference.

This blatantly Christian attempt to understand ‘the Hindu religion’ also manifested itself in the coloniser’s understanding of the fundamental tenets or ‘laws’ of Hinduism, leading to the quest for a Moses-like ‘lawgiver’. This quest yielded Manu, the author of the much-reviled Manusmriti.

1. The Essential Religious Practices (ERP) test, as applied by the Indian Supreme Court in matters involving protection of religious practices and institutions under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, may be traced to the Christian colonial distinction between essential tenets of a religion and its non-essential aspects; and 2. The application of the Christian concept of ‘religion’ to Indic OET gave rise to the debate as to whether Hinduism was a ‘religion’ or ‘a way of life’.

It was the 1927 Act whose constitutionality was originally challenged in writ petitions in 1951 by the Shirur Math from Udupi (in present-day Karnataka) and the Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram (in present-day Tamil Nadu) before the Madras High Court in what has come to be known as the Shirur Math case.

Ironically, the very same provisions of the 1951 Madras HRCE Act, which were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1954, were reintroduced in sum and substance in the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, which is still in force to date. These reintroduced provisions, along with the corresponding provisions of the HRCE legislations of Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry, are currently under challenge before the Supreme Court in a Writ Petition filed in 2012 by the late Swami Dayananda Saraswathi, founder of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.

This is in stark contrast to the Christian secularism of Europe which protects Christian institutions from State interference.

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. Article 25(2)(a) enables the State to make laws ‘regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice’.

What article 25(2)(a) contemplates is not regulation by the State of religious practices as such, the freedom of which is guaranteed by the Constitution except when they run counter to public order, health and morality, but regulation of activities which are economic, commercial or political in their character though they are associated with religious practices

Article 25(1). In other words, thenceforth, 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.

The fact that 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. It bears noting that 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.

First, it is important to distinguish between (a) the need for legal/constitutional approximation of Indic faith systems as ‘religion’ to ensure the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms and (b) OET-based differences between Indic faith systems and the coloniser’s religion.

OET is concerned, the adherents of Indic OET systems are justified in taking the position that their OETs are vastly different from that of Christianity, and therefore, except for the purposes of enjoyment of equal rights under the Constitution, the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of Indic OET and Christian OET are not and cannot be treated as the same.

‘Hinduism’, given its approach to the concept of soul and consciousness, its relationship with nature, and its diverse and federal character reflected by the nature of the Indic civilisation, is vastly different from monochromatic, monotheistic and centrally organised religions, such as Islam and Christianity.

In other words, the Supreme Court, while recognising that Sanatana Dharma cannot be understood through the Abrahamic construct of ‘religion’, has not taken away the right of Dharmic OET systems to be treated as ‘religion’ for the purposes of enjoyment and exercise of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms.