Idea Of Europe Vs India’s: The Former Remains In Question, The Latter Firmly Marches Forward

For centuries, there have been many attempts made to define Europe, culturally and politically. This endeavour continues today but is far from reaching finality.

The idea of Europe was emphasised during the colonial era - when European countries dominated the world - but crashed during the two major world wars of the twentieth century. The European Union (EU) then rose to restore the unity of Europe and prevent future wars in the region. Yet, to date, the EU covers only part of Europe, and the British have voted out of it. Whether the EU will survive in the long term remains in doubt.

The idea of Europe is changing rapidly with migrants from Africa and the Middle East bringing in different values and lifestyles that may fundamentally alter European culture in a span of decades.

There is a similar debate in progress about whether India has any real cultural identity, considering the region was historically divided and subjected to repeated foreign invasions. Some scholars propose that before 1947, there was no real India but only a history of South Asia.

Let us see how the idea of Europe fares under similar scrutiny to the idea of India.

Europe Not a Continent

The geographical identity of Europe as a continent is the first myth about Europe that can easily be dispelled. Geographically speaking, Europe is but one of the many regions or subcontinents of Asia, not a continent in its own right. Its eastern boundary, in particular, does not constitute any real barrier.

The Ural Mountains are low-range, and the open steppes to the south have witnessed a repeated movement of people over the centuries. We can trace migration patterns from the Russians in recent times to Turks and Mongols in the Middle Ages, and further to ancient groups like the Huns and Scythians. Most of these movements have been into Europe from Asia.

Sometimes the greater Asian continent is called Eurasia, but that is also incorrect. If we can use the term Eurasia, then Indo-Asia or Sino-Asia are just as geographically correct.

The Story of European Cultural Origins

Historians propose that the Greeks first invented European culture, notably in the Athenian era of the fourth century BCE, as something new, rational, scientific and democratic, and distinct from the irrational, mystical and authoritarian cultures of Asia. Yet, Greek territories included what is now called Turkey to the east and little of Europe proper.

Alexander the Great’s Empire was almost entirely in Asia, only holding the small Greek peninsula in Europe. The later Hellenistic world had similar boundaries and was primarily Asian. As for the Greeks being the first true European culture, the Greek pantheon of deities, temple worship, use of astrology and mystical philosophies resemble more the culture of India than what we would usually call European.

We are told that the Romans advanced the cause of European culture after the Greeks. Yet, geographically speaking, the Roman world was the Mediterranean region, and the Romans considered themselves a Mediterranean people.

It is then said that the Roman Empire became more European after it adopted Christianity in the fourth century CE. But Christianity was a Near-Eastern religion, not European. Christianity sidelined native Greco-Roman culture, including its rational, democratic and scientific aspects, for an authoritarian view of God and truth. It converted, often by force, the native religions of Europe and marginalised their older cultures.

Probably the real inventor of what we might recognise geographically as Europe was Emperor Charlemagne around 800 CE, who united Western Europe under his rule, based on a strong alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. This idea of Europe continued falteringly through the Middle Ages by the Holy Roman Empire, which, however, as the famous French writer Voltaire noted, “was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.”

European identity received a boost at the time of the Crusades in which many Europeans came together to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims, who had recently driven the Byzantine Christians from the region. Yet, the identity of the Crusaders was more Christian than European, allying with Asian Christians like the Armenians and Georgians.

The Idea of Modern Europe

The Renaissance of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is probably the period in which a modern European identity truly emerged. Yet, this was based on restoring ancient pagan Greek learning, with an idea of Europe that had pre-Christian roots and provoked the ire of the Catholic Church as a heresy.

The European identity gained strength through the seventeenth-century Enlightenment and the Classical Era of the eighteenth century, which continued a romanticised Greco-Roman idea of Europe, allied with science, rationalism and humanism that European countries had recently developed. The Colonial era represented the greatest triumph of Europe but could not hold the region together.

Meanwhile, since the fifteenth century, Eastern Europe was under attack by the Turks, and much of it remained under Islamic rule till the late nineteenth century. The idea of Europe was primarily that of Western Europe.

There was an attempt to reconcile Christianity with Greco-Roman culture as if science, rationalism and humanism were European Christian in nature. Promoting both rationalism and Christianity became the hallmark of the Colonial era, though Christian beliefs, starting with the virgin birth, are hardly rational. And we should remember that the wealth of colonial Europe was built on the gold of the Americas, the labour of black Africans, and the exploitation of great Asian civilisations like India and China.

While we see an idea of Europe developing over time, and outlines of a Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, rational, humanistic European culture, we also see internal contradiction and a lack of cohesion, keeping the region at war. There never was a pan-European empire or State, just general associations and aspirations. Europe as an idea, therefore, has existed more like a wish than a reality.

Today, Christianity is in decline in Europe, along with traditional European culture overall. Modern science meanwhile appears to have more in common with the open-minded meditation traditions of Asia than with the faith- or belief-based dogma of Christianity.

India’s Identity

India’s identity is often questioned owing to a lack of political unity, along with the country’s historical division into regional states. Yet, Europe has never been unified politically and is today more divided than India – which is now a single nation comprising most of the traditional subcontinent! India has a much older and greater cultural unity than Europe that we can observe in its continuing ancient traditions, festivals and pilgrimages, like the massive Kumbha Melas – the largest religious and cultural gatherings in the world.

There are numerous volumes on the history and culture of Europe and its greatness; yet, India’s identity is now suspect in history books, even though it is far more substantial. There is little effort made to trace the movement of Indian or Bharatiya culture, even though its influence on the world, particularly in Asia where the largest numbers of people have lived, is ancient and profound.

India’s influence has been based on culture and spirituality, not armies and politics. But that is no reason to disapprove of its identity. Unlike the military and colonial expansions of Europe, India’s influence was not accompanied or sustained by invasion, plunder and genocide.

Today, the identity of Europe remains in question; that of India, however, is now moving forward into a new century, along with an honouring of its past.