Author: Rajita Rajvasishth
Publication: Swaveda
Date: June 16, 2004
URL: http://www.swaveda.com/articles.php?action=show&id=37
In 1857 Indians made the first concerted
attempt to shake off the British tyranny that had been imposed on them
since 1818 (following the defeat of the Peshwas and their lieutenants).
The British called this "Sepoy Mutiny" and it was triggered off by the
(purported) distribution of bovine-fat-smeared-cartridges that needed to
be bitten off before use. The British were almost knocked off in this uprising,
but managed to somehow suppress the effort with their native levies. It
took the Indians over 90 years thereafter to cast off the physical yoke
of the British but the constraints of mental colonization still remain
to be shed.
With the turn of the 20th century
of the Common Era we saw the number of monetarily and materially empowered
Indians increase to levels never witnessed since independence. Concomitant
with this, we saw the Internet revolution and a combination of these factors
resulted in Indians participating on the Web with phenomenal avidity. An
important offshoot of this event was the realization of the persistent
mental colonization of the Indian mind despite physical freedom. The first
symptoms of this realization were seen in the discussion on the Liverpool
Indology forum, where Indians questioned stereotypic portrayals of their
history by Euro-American Indologists. The reaction from the Western scholars
was acrimonious, to put it mildly, and this soon led to the closure of
the Indology list. This was followed by an attempt to create an Indology
list on Yahoo- groups; however, the same arrogance of the Western Indologists
also resulted in it being closed to open discussion by Hindus. In the mean
time these Western academics and their Indian Sepoys who started feeling
the heat of the Indian rebellion started a tirade against any Indians daring
to oppose their dogmas on their elitist list RISA (Religion in South Asia)
and its look-alikes. Most recently, a list duplicitously termed "openRISA"
failed to live up to its name and shut-down merely because Indian members
dared to question some stereotypes posted therein by Western academics.
In the mean time, several Indians
spear-headed by Rajiv Malhotra, Vishal Agrawal and Sankarant Sanu have
written articles questioning the very fundamentals of various aspects of
western scholarship. In a parallel approach Balagangadhara, a scholar from
Ghent, has developed a new set of axioms to address the very basis of Indic
and Western thought. By means of this he questions the very validity of
the constructs developed by Western scholars to analyze Indic themes. However,
the chief event that caught the imagination of the Hindus, all and sundry,
was exposure of Paul Courtright's attempt to pass cheap "smut" as scholarship.
I liken this to the spark triggered by fat- smeared cartridges in 1857-the
first war for the liberation of the colonized Indian mind has begun. However,
the failure of 1857 is something we must learn from, and try to avoid in
this venture. Firstly, we must realize that sepoys would be deployed by
the Western academics against their compatriots and we must not be taken
in by these sepoys. Secondly, like in 1857 there will be disunity amongst
the freedom-fighters: we need to minimize this. It is clear that each of
the major personages in this war has their unique agendas and personalities.
Nevertheless, they must put differences aside for the bigger cause and
not lose sight of it. Finally, one of the important causes for the failure
of 1857 was the lack of a clear idea regarding governance on part of the
Indians, in the event they had overthrown the British. Here too we witness
lack of clarity in this regard. Some people are given to extravagant claims
about Hindu achievements that do not stand the scrutiny of scientific analysis.
Yet others are caught up by un-required shame regarding issues such as
caste and the like. So it is important to concentrate on constructively
working towards alternative truthful narratives in addition to deconstructing
the colonial hangovers. It is towards this direction the educated Indians,
who are concerned about this war, need to work.
Finally we should also realize that
the cost of failure is immense, just as in 1857.
