Originality as Slavery

              Originality as Slavery; Everything is possible in India. 

What’s the worst thing that the British did to us ?

Was it the partition, the economic drain, the theory of races and the loss of confidence? 

I think it was something more sinister and something more unplanned. What the perception of imperial intellectual superiority did was to deprive the colonies of their confidence in their faith, beliefs and consequently even any hope of redemption.

Modernity was something alien, foreign, not only in origin but also in development. All sorts of developments came from a mystical land abroad where the fountainhead of all the progress was located. This resulted in the demeaning of the brown/black/yellow man’s experience, the denial fo their reality, the suppression of their self. 

We might argue that it wasn’t their mistake that they were much more advanced and that in lieu of the character of those times, what happened was completely natural and would have happened the other way round too. I am not here to judge on the moralistic aspect of the phenomenon. I can only give my views on the impact that the entire event had on the intellectual sphere of the indigenous people. 

People of the 'orient' suddenly found themselves at a disadvantage. I say suddenly because they were not abreast with the latest developments taking place in Europe at that point of time. The cultural shock was perhaps more than the technological one. End of feudalism, equality of man and the belief in self to think rationally and believe in one’s own experience rather than what has been handed down by ages, were all antithetical to the major streams of thoughts going on at that time in East. 

Science pervaded the colonies with the advent of the modern products, the modern administration and obviously the superior arms. Along with these self evident advancements were the subtle one’s too, the intellectual browbeating and decrying the primitiveness of the eastern belief systems. It’s true that many scholars like Max Muller were prominent in 'orient'al studies and gave due respect to the ancient texts that had reached a very advanced line of reasoning, but then the centuries of dust gathered upon those texts prevented the masses from being aware of their own heritage. 

The consequent disillusionment saw the ‘aping’ of the modern western traditions. Even this wasn’t too bad. Atleast the people would have had a framework within which they would have consequently developed their original thoughts and life experiences, after they had lost their timidity with the foreign and adopted it as their own. 

In the process of ‘revivalism’ of many of these ancient cultures, a counter reaction developed. It was here that the fine lines of modernity and cultural imposition was tightened into a boundary wall. Only what could be derived from the ancient culture was considered good and anyone who tended to disagree was a foreign stooge and anti-nationalist. 

In the subcontinent, such a tendency aggravated communalism, led to partition and also in the intellectual realm produced another stupor, for the reform movements were now warded off with hostility. The chains of past redoubled in their strength, for now they were self imposed and the ways of progress for the East were closed. 

WHY? 

The primary factor, the most important factor that led to this dehumanising experience for entire nations was the military superiority of the men who won them over. It left a psychological scar, a deeply debilitating act of suppression of the originality of the men who were reduced to status of chattel. You can’t reason against victors, but you surely can reason with them. 

Perhaps a vast percentage of Indian population had the same sort of experience in differing guises of caste and religious restrictions, social taboos and then even entire philosophies that prevented the rise of a thinking man ( Read Untouchables, Varna system, Finality of Vedas) . 

Culture isn’t something that is formed a byproduct of the material advancement. Rather it is the framework within which all of the changes take place, it is the cradle that determines the pace and the nature of the growth. Indian culture has evolutionary roots going back thousands of years and it  serves the dual purpose of giving wisdom and binding people to within it’s limits. 

The growth of any civilisation depends on the vigour of it’s people. New information, revelations and discoveries inevitably assist in the advancement. The role of philosophy is to reconcile people to the new emerging reality and simultaneously direct the processes of growth. It is this philosophy that has the power to gradually shape cultures, to shape the institutions that guide a society and give it the ‘incentives’ and ‘disincentives’ to grow and not the other way round as the authors of the book - Why Nations Fail,  Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have hypothesised in their book. 

Who Opposes Change?

Behind the culture of progress that enabled the Europeans to come up with new institutions and patterns of growth was the originality of it’s thinkers. The 'orient'al mind during that time had been so engrossed by it’s strictures and taboos that it didn’t dare to think beyond it’s natural boundaries. 

Furthermore, the progress of many of these nations today is still a struggle between the traditional and the new, the destruction of the unyielding old culture and the ‘imposed’ outside one that is behind all of the progress. 

Unless, there’s a self confidence in the validity of a cultures own experiences and its own developments, the progress even when created by the people living inside the country would be viewed intellectually to be as outside the realm of the culture as possible, even perhaps as a kind of slavery; originality as slavery, yes it’s possible. 

The very fabric of a culture can be counterintuitive to certain types of growths. A hierarchal culture would not support questioning, a culture where social respect is placed at too high a pedestal would not suffer any changes, a culture where religion takes the central position, would not progress at all and stay in the 'heaven' of it's sufferings ( material ones only). 

Again, I do not want to judge any sort existence. Modernity isn't something that is has been nutritious for the human soul. But, I do want to lay a strong case for rebellion against the morasses of dead culture, dead thoughts, dead Gods. They are dead because they are no longer alive in the thoughts of the present generation. We need fearless thoughts and ceaseless self inquiry to develop a framework that validates "our" experiences, "our" truths and "our" lives and not merely of those dead and gone.