Quarreling with Indian Perspectives

There have been few people in the world who have gone against the stream and these were the few people who could challenge the existing state of affairs in the society at a given point of time. If we consider the situation of India in this regard, except the Rigvedic and the post Vedic times to the golden era of the Guptas, India’s ideological, socio-economic, political and cultural; considerations have often been camouflaged by the advent of different colonists in India. India totally lost its firm ideological perceptions after the advent of the Islamic rulers and this loss amplified with the arrival of the British in India. Hence the haziness and indifferent perceptions which became the part and parcel of common Indian thinking can well be attributed to the dark ages from the eleventh to the eighteenth or rather nineteenth century in India.

During the same period approximately, in the western nations, was seen the wave of Renaissance which culminated as the great industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century having its roots right at the MAGNA CARTA of 1215 in England. But a post Industrial revolution epoch saw a colonial expansion by these western nations which ultimately became a major cause for an economic retrogression in the colonies and in our case, in India. But this came up as an instrumental perception which was created in the minds of the Indians which ignited the sentiment for freedom struggle in India, and consequently independence was achieved.

A larger question still hits everyone’s mind today, whether discussed generally or academically, that what the “Mantra” was, through which these western nations succeeded in conquering or rather capturing such a large part of the world to the extent making it a proverb that ‘Sun never sets on the British Empire’.

Another question which arises is that whether we are, after 63 years of independence, capable of retaining our identity, especially, our socio-economic, political and cultural perceptions and idiosyncrasies or again a neo-colonialism not physically but mentally is making us slaves, since these were the countries which, though being smaller in population and scarce in resources could make their identity as the first world countries and developed countries way back, when we would have never thought of even an independent nation. In the words of Professor G. Mohan Gopal, “When we Indians were building Taj Mahal, the west were building the notions of freedom and equality.”

What has lacked in us and still lacks in our attitudes and perceptions which make us secondary to these nations who have ultimately dwelled over our resources?