India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

Product Information

It is pretty rare for a book that can be classified as very erudite to be welcomed with such pomp and praise, primarily when the book in question addresses the esoteric space of decoloniality and its implication in the Bharatiya context. It is a must read for everyone who want to understand, how India has been colonised and its effect on Indian psyche(which is not talked much). Sai Deepak also brings to bear his enviable experience in the field of Constitutional Law and his involvement with some of the most controversial and path breaking cases that have warranted the attention of the Apex Court in recent times, such as the Sabarimala Case and the HRCE Rulings. Even the Chinese refer to their country as "China" when they speak English and "Zhong Guo" when they speak Chinese. The end result is a comprehensive examination of everything related to our civilization and how we perceive it, most notably in the spheres of religion, nature, history, education, and constitutionalism.

This substitution ensures that even after unshackling itself from colonialism, a colonized nation charts its future economic, social and cultural trajectory based on the very values and beliefs which it has spent an agonizingly long time, getting rid of. It also suggests that significant support is required to develop its proposals further in directions not yet explored. While I had knowledge of colonialism, like most others in India and British Colonialism to be precise, but had never heard of 'Coloniality'. Hence an urgent and indispensable need for India as a nation represented (and continues to represent) an inculcation of a decolonial conscience rather than remaining smug in an illusory and metaphorical comfort offered by post-colonial philosophies.The concept of a nation-state, constitutionalism, modernity, secularism and the understanding of what is a civilisation are borrowed from the British and held in high esteem. Today, the international laws and treaties applied to non-western "nation-states" are all rooted in Protestant Reformation-inspired Westphalian principles. The entire colonization process aims at universalizing and standardizing ways of life instead of allowing the diversity of different groups and societies to flourish. He goes on to explain in great detail what is decoloniality, it's methods of working, it's desired outcomes and its effect on society.

He again very clearly demonstrates with original transcriptions of Parliamentary debates, letters between various church officials and British officials and how Christian values were subtly but surely introduced in Bharat and what the intent and ultimate aim was of the Coloniser and how they wanted to achieve that. Also included are extracts from debates in the British Parliament on the Government of India Act, on the East India Company Charter, and on educational reforms. Here, the brilliance of Deepak the lawyer and student of law shines brightly through the such that the entire left-liberal gang will be thrown into the obscurities of dark hell (pun entirely intended). Even though the British state claimed to be secular and thus impartial to all religions, almost a quarter of this book is dedicated to list out the instances in which it went out of the way to promote Christian evangelism.I hope the book will be read and debated widely, especially in and for the sake of the 'India that is Bharat'. The author emphasizes how every stratum of our society bears a colonial stamp and why it is essential to judge all of our social structures, religion, polity, economics, and law using a decolonial approach and rejecting European-centric ideas.

The author here has aptly presented the view as professed by scholars that society has the right to interpret coloniality and the decoloniality must be defined as something which it has experienced itself and at the same time has aptly presented the example with the pervasion that the European form of colonialism had over the world. There is good discussion about post-modernism and the coloniality and there is a clear overlap between his views and views of modern American and European, for lack of a better term, leftist literature.

Reading this book brought out my underlying disgust for British and European colonization and reaffirmed my belief in Bharatiya culture and values. And ultimately creates a new hochpoch khichdi conspiracy theory type narrative and present it to public.

The religious wars popularly known as the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia which ended it engendered nation-states and postulated the twin ideals of a spiritual and temporal sphere. When you have read the book — or even just after reading this article — see if you can identify the colonials and post colonials amongst us and in politics, judiciary, legal fraternity, media and the academe.The civil society acted as a secularized reproduction of the Christian assumption that humans are stained by sin and fundamentally depraved. He makes no attempt to understand that the humanities are inherently subjective and all the evidence that is provided by scholars of humanities is purely interpretations of observations and should be judged based on their utility in real life rather than their ideological underpinnings. He clearly demonstrates how it was Christian beliefs about race and superiority were the driving factors behind the colonial nature of European forces and that everything else was simply a by-product of that colonising nature. Sai Deepak’s sharp intellect and legal acumen equip him to extract the essential from the complex and lucidly present his summary without any loss of accuracy.