Decolonizing The Indian Mind

The mental impact of the 2 waves of colonizations

Hello reader,

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Back to the 5-minute Sunday mindgasm you’ve been waiting for…

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Every Indian has thought about the devastating fate her country witnessed over the last few centuries.

The impact of that episode can be felt even today- from the unfairly low levels of income to the communal tensions that keep flaring up.

But the damage inflicted upon the land and its people wasn’t just physical. Much more pernicious and concerning was what this did to the Indian mind.

Today’s piece is about the idea of decoloniality. To unpack this, we must understand the logic behind colonization and its implications.

Let’s break it down point by point:

• What is coloniality? It is the policy that a colonizer adopts in the country/region after its conquest, to shape the minds of the colonized. The goal of coloniality is to eradicate the link that the colonized person has with her civilization- her language, culture, customs, etc. and shape her in the image of the colonizer. The colonized must develop the feeling that the culture of their conquerors is superior and that there’s nothing to value in their own. This is a much more effective way of converting (and controlling) the oppressed without having to resort to violence. This was an express goal of the European colonizers in all the lands they occupied.
  
  

• Bharat experienced two waves of coloniality- the Islamic Middle Eastern coloniality which started with Mohammed Bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh in the 7th century, and British coloniality which emerged after they took control of a large part of the country over the 18th and 19th centuries. In essence, our country has experienced both overt and covert colonization- the violent episode of subjugation at the hands of Islamic invaders who sought to convert Indians (or kill them if they resisted), as well as the covert mental colonization planned by the British that has left a lasting mark on the Bharatiya mind. There was always a theological basis to these colonizations. The religions of both colonizers are monotheistic: they believe that they’re the only “true” religions and that the rest are infidels who must either be converted or destroyed.
  
  
  

• At its root, British coloniality was based on a few fundamental beliefs- the idea that white men (and their religion) are inherently superior to the rest. This led to the idea of “lifting the ignorant and superstitious men” through the 3 Cs- Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization (the theological roots of Western colonization can be observed in this meme). As a result, the white man’s colonial project sought to shape the ignorant Indians in their image- shaping their minds with European ideas, language, customs, and practices. You may not be able to convert a person to your way of life by force, but it’s easier to do it by changing the way they think.
  
  

  
  

• The implications of this project were profound. The goal was to disconnect people from their culture/ideas and train them with Western ideas, such that they’d grow up always looking up to the white man, with a deep inferiority complex and often with a sense of self-loathing. This was the ultimate goal of the British education system. Take the example of boarding schools, where students could only speak in English and weren’t allowed to converse in their mother tongue. These schools were located in far-off locations away from the cultural centers of the land so they could keep the kids away from their families and any other places where the link to their culture might still be preserved. Language is what connects us to our civilization, and by severing this crucial link, the British managed to create a new breed of rootless, deracinated Indians who grew up with a dim view of their land and with the idea that the white men were indeed the best. There’s a British saying from South Africa, which goes something like: “If you can’t beat them on the battlefield, beat them in the classroom”.
  
  
  

• A lot of our historical documents have either been destroyed or distorted. Thus, a tremendous amount of damage was done when the Britisher attempted to understand and interpret our ideas/practices based on their worldview (which they considered to be the only real view). This led to many grave misinterpretations, which were conveniently used to brand Bharat as a land of the ignorant. For instance, Indians were branded as “idol worshippers” which was considered a lowly, ignorant practice. What it missed was that the point of an idol is not blind worship but to seek inspiration and emulate the qualities of the idol. Similar distortions of our past abound, which means the legacy of dated British ideas on our civilization continues to infect our minds- passed down faithfully by our outdated education system. To set ourselves free, we must understand and interpret our texts & cultural ideas on our own terms- exactly as they were and not the way a white supremacist wanted to position them in our minds.
  There’s a lot more to unpack in terms of how coloniality is still embedded within our psyche, culture, and institutions.

  
  

What’s important is to take the first step- to identify this problem clearly and begin to work on questioning the assumptions & biases that have been baked into our minds since childhood.

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Thanks for tuning in. If you’re interested in diving deeper, J Sai Deepak’s India That Is Bharat is a good starting point and one of the first detailed arguments that got me interested in this subject.

If you enjoyed today’s piece, you may want to read:

• India’s Golden Age Of Philosophy

• East India Company: The Father Of Evil Corporations

• What Shivaji Maharaj Achieved