JOIN USRegaining cultural confidence
We have modern science, modern technology, modern industry, the rule of law, individualism, nationalism…” -- the list of things that the British in colonial times declared to be in their possession went along these lines. India, in their eyes, lacked these. This style of an us-and-them distinction game, which consolidated through the course of colonial rule, came to have newer and newer dimensions: fast cars, tractors, skyscrapers, mammoth highways, gigantic landholdings, even punctuality -- these supplied the evidence for the persistence of the civilisational gap.
The sinister colonial drama drew, of course, a variety of responses among Indians. There is the original response of Gandhi, spelt out most grippingly in his Hind-Swaraj, which simply set aside the colonial ideas of modern civilisation as invalid, claiming instead that “true civilisation” showed humans “the path of duty,” where the mastery of the self takes priority over the pursuit of “bodily welfare.” And, as he clarified, his ideas in this regard were shared by “many Indians” outside the influence of modern civilisation and “thousands of Europeans” as well. The self-confidence vis-à-vis the colonial gambit seen in Gandhi’s response continues to be exemplary.
A second response, which expressed faith in being able to emulate the West, found many takers among educated Indians, bringing in its wake a powerful cultural pathology to modern India. While the colonial classification of societies in terms of time on a scale of civilisational progress held out scope for the non-West to catch up with the West, viewing oneself in a state of backwardness on the world stage, though, brought with it a new vulnerability. With an imagined West as a fixed source of comparison, the Indian efforts to achieve progress sought constant validation from the West to feel complete. With the need for such a validation reaching the status of an internalised reflex, despair over a failed satellite launch or the heavy attractions of foreign degrees, for instance, has seemed natural. What the love for Western progress meant for how modern Indians came to view people in rural and tribal India as “backward” is another story altogether.
The craving for applause from the West while being touchy towards any criticism from it continues to flourish among Indians. The recent hostility seen among Indians towards the support that the singer, Rihanna, and the climate change activist, Greta Thunberg, expressed towards the farmers’ protests amply testifies to this enduring pathology. The same Indians who exult at the news of an Indian winning the Nobel Prize or the Booker Prize or an Oscar award will not tolerate any criticism of the country from Western societies. Just as the award of these prizes alone need not matter outside of the worthiness of the awardees, the moral support for the protesting farmers need not matter outside of the basis for the support. The central government’s shutting down of the internet services near the farmers’ protest sites or its placing of spikes and barbed wire to obstruct the protesters’ movements is surely deserving of everyone’s criticism. Really, what does it matter where this criticism comes from?
India and Indians were right to express moral disapproval for the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. It is similar with their disapproval of the Israeli State’s violence toward the Palestinians. It is such shows of solidarity with the oppressed communities which have clarified the values India stands by in the modern world. If we do not object to the Chinese State’s violence towards the minority Uyghur community or ask the Burmese government to stop persecuting the Rohingyas, or insist on a worldwide nuclear disarmament, we will have shrunk our moral selves. Asking ourselves to stay silent on these issues on the grounds of not interfering in another country’s affairs will be to offer a narrow, even obscene, rationale for what at bottom is an abdication of moral sensitivity.
The religions of the world, which have contributed much to the shaping of ethical sensibilities among communities, do not ask that the human conscience restrict itself to this or that country: a conscience exists in relation to the whole world. Realising this is a step towards evolving a mature sense of one’s place in the world and a step, too, towards exorcising the Western referee within us.