India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution by J. Sai Deepak
5 of 5 stars
The colonial studies with Indian perspective are strangely almost non-existent. In spite of sub-continent going through tragic colonial experiences first with Muslim invaders and then with British Colonialism, the colonial studies in India have lagged behind other regions like Latin America where many scholars have researched and debunked the prevalent colonial notions. J. Sai Deepak has successfully filled that huge vacuum with this corpus of decolonial scholarship from Indian perspective. In this book Sai Deepak has tried to understand the global history of colonialism, it’s terrible impact on India’s culture, politics and justice system. He delved into colonial consciousness that lingers post-independence from British and outlines pathways to reverse it and decolonize Indian mind. J Sai Deepak used his exacting judicial knowledge, his devotion to Sanatana tradition to present us with a vision of civilisational liberation for Bharatavarsha. It is a well-researched book and the wealth of evidence the author marshals in support of his arguments is truly impressive making a strong case to fully decolonise India.
The book cover the birth of colonial framework during the Age of Discovery marked by Colombus expeditions and how it landed on Indian shores reshaping Bhartiya consciousness through a British made constitution – the Government of Indian Act 1919. It goes on tracing the universal constructs of ‘secularism’ and phony ‘toleration’ to Christian political theology and how these constructs subverted indigenous Indic consciousness and unfortunately made their way into Indian constitution. Though major emphasis is on British colonialism, the book also briefly covers Middle Eastern Coloniality and its shared antipathy towards Indic worldview. Sai Deepak provides succinct examples of how this coloniality regularly manifests itself in judicial pronouncements on Indic faith based matters, the State’s continued stranglehold and perverse intervention in the majority’s places of worship, or the causal, axiomatic pronouncements of the elite, who debunk the very idea of our existence as a nation ever, pathetically attributing this as well to the Raj like other misguided attempts on economic milestones like schools, railways etc. The book does bring to light the comprehensive extent of the success of the European colonial project. It also highlights that attempts at Indian decolonization were not lacking for want of effort but were at the core of modern Indian Renaissance started in the second half of nineteenth century. The luminaries of Indian Renaissance made numerous attempts to produce a comparative history and analyses of the world from Sanatana perspective but colonial constitution adopted at Independence tragically halted those initiatives in 1947.
In the later chapter Sai Deepak outlines the steps needed in the spheres of nature, religion, culture, history, education, language and constitutional justice system to liberate Bhart’s distinctive indigeneity. Sai Deepak convincingly busts each of the colonial myths and their idiotic symptoms through fact based arguments demolishing the foundations of lingering colonial consciousness in the Bhartiya mind. The book will be seminal in starting movements of reclamation and reparatory justice and will help reimagine and reconstruct Indic world, our notions of modernity and rationality from Indian viewpoint.
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