A New Free Resource For Decolonisation Discourse

At its peak, the Soviet Union (1917-1991) cited Indian media in its confidential documents as a prime example of effective national media manipulation.

This observation holds even more true for Indian social sciences, which continue to function as compliant instruments of colonial legacy.

Historically, colonial powers justified their dominion through the so-called "civilizing mission," a narrative rationalising two centuries of uninhibited exploitation.

Indian social sciences, to this day, often perpetuate this colonial framework, reflecting a deep-seated influence that remains largely unchallenged.

Even after the departure of the colonial masters, the narrative of colonial "civilizing" mission, has been profoundly internalized by many Indians, leading them to view their own civilization as inherently deficient in ethical and spiritual values.

This internalised sense of civilizational inadequacy, perpetuated intensely for nearly two centuries, has fostered the emergence of a distinct class of vested interests within Indian society. These vested interests are driven not only by ideology but also by career advancement.

This has deep impact in the way curricula are framed regarding history and other social sciences, right from the school level.

On this subject, Dr. Kundan Singh, a humanities scholar with Sofia Universit,. and Krishna Maheswari of Hindupedia, have come up with a well-researched book, Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children.

The methodology they employ is based on the writings of Aimé Césaire, Franz Fanon, and Albert Memmi - Francophone postcolonial thinkers.

The book studies both the derisive discourse James Mill crafted regarding India and the psychological consequences that the Indian-American children experience in the class rooms to this today, because the the discourse and stereotype that Mill constructed has evolved to provide the basic framework to study the Hindu religion, culture, society and Hindus themselves.

The authors have arranged the chapters in the form of concentric circles.

The first chapter is the largest circle which provides the methodology. The authors identify James Mill as the primary creator of a distorted, hate-filled history of India, which influenced global historiography for nearly two centuries.

The author-duo needs to be congratulated for bringing out how Mill, who was quite the formulator of social emancipation in relation to Britain, generated the worst stereotypes when it came to India.

That is one of the reasons why when decolonising, a Hindu scholar dealing with decolonialism needs to take a nuanced expression as to differentiate genuine universal values present in the enlightenment of the West from the Protestant-fundamentalism and colonialism generated discourse.

In the second chapter, the authors use Francophone postcolonial analysis to identify common elements in colonial academic discourse and their effects on the colonised.

The knowledge about the colonised by the coloniser then percolates into the colonised realm and becomes the collective self-image of the colonised society which in turn generates its own power structures and vested interests.

The third concentric circle moves into the very specific subject of how Mill created his image of Hindus as uncivilized, barbaric people with oppressive hierarchies.

In the fourth chapter the authors empirically show how this imagery of Hindus that Mill generated was actually wrong. Here they do not get into the usual rhetoric associated with many writers who deal with this topic. On the other hand, they start from the important work of Thomas Kuhn with respect to paradigms of the mind dictating the 'truth' and create a rigorous Indian framework mainly relying on Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.

There is also good fertilisation from the work of Prof. Balaganadara. Combining all these Kundan Singh has developed an Indian post-colonial theory and used it in the analysis of how Mill generated the 'truth' about Hindus, Hinduism and India.

This chapter perhaps forms the heart of the book and in itself stands as an important document for research scholars working on decolonisation.

Applying this framework to hard data with regard to Mill, the authors observe:

This is quite in tune with utilitarian value system of Mill.

Without visiting India, he created a mostly fictional "other," claim the authors, to forcefully caricature his own people into adopting the reforms and values he wanted.

It also helped the British empire justify itself and claim a civilizational role.

The importance of this chapter as a separate obligatory reading material for the understanding of decolonising cannot be overemphasised.

The fifth chapter discusses the persistent impact of this colonial construct into our times. It shows how it traumatizes the present generation of Indian-American children in the United States.

This framework allows Hindus in India to critique their own school curricula, which often take Mill's characterizations of India and Hinduism as unquestionable.

This book thus becomes a valuable tool for educators and parents concerned about understanding what their children might be experiencing in schools.

On the whole, this book is important and mandatory for those who want to be part of scholarly resistance against the persisting colonial discourse in the context of India.

The book is available for unlimited open access. That means it is free and it can be downloaded. Thus the authors have provided quite a powerful and valuable tool in the hands of students of decolonisation, particularly in the context of Hindu Dharma and Indian social history. It is available here.

Every student of Indian culture, history, and society should make use of it. It will also be a great resource for text-book creators.