Six signs your friend has been colonised

If your friend uses the word karma to mean justice, you know he’s been colonised. Let’s begin there.

In classical Indian thought, karma has nothing to do with justice. It is simply the principle of cause and effect that links past, present, and future lives. Every action has consequences, but these consequences are not moral judgements. They are simply outcomes — ripples of an act echoing through time. Every event is a reaction to the past. Those who eat get eaten. Balance is maintained. Humans consume but do not want to be consumed. This is adharma. It breaks the karmic balance sheet.

Once your friend starts saying things like ‘karma is a b*tch’ or ‘you’ll get your karma’, he’s turned an ancient idea into a moral courtroom. He has replaced karma with justice, a concept that entered India through Christian and Islamic theology — through colonial education that divided the world into good and evil, heaven and hell. That’s the first sign of colonisation. 

Dharma becomes god’s will

The second sign appears when people start using dharma to mean god’s will or divine law. Listen carefully to people around you, especially the new generation of ‘righteous warriors’ who say they’re fighting for the cause of dharma.

In ancient India, dharma meant context-based duty — contributing, not consuming, in any situation to the best of our ability. What is dharma for a king is not dharma for a monk. What is dharma for a mother is not dharma for her son. It is never absolute. But when dharma becomes ‘god’s command’, it has already been colonised, a shift mirroring Abrahamic myth.

The vigilante god

The third sign of colonisation is when our gods start behaving like Hollywood superheroes.

Look at the new Bollywood trend: films that portray Narasimha, Parashurama, or Krishna as angry vigilantes — roaring, smashing, and avenging. The camera slows, the music swells, the villain burns. It’s satisfying, yes — but not Indian.

In the traditional stories, avatars don’t come to solve problems through violence. Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t say, ‘I come to destroy the wicked.’ He says, “I come to restore dharma.” The difference is subtle, but profound.

It is not about plucking weeds and saving crops; it is teaching plants not to turn into parasites. That is why in Hindu stories there are no heroes and villains. There are people who repay debts, and those who do not. 

The fantasy of the final war

The fourth sign of colonisation is the fantasy of a war that will end all wars.

The Bible ends with the Apocalypse — a final cosmic battle between good and evil. Western civilisation has inherited this dream of the ultimate cleansing war, the ‘endgame’. You see it in every Hollywood blockbuster, every ‘final showdown’. Even modern politics dreams of a decisive victory that will fix the world forever.

But Indian epics don’t end like that. The Mahabharata does not end with a victory; it ends with sorrow. After the war, the women become widows, the children become orphans, and the victors live with guilt. Yudhishthira feels no triumph, only weariness. Even Krishna faces his curse and the destruction of his clan. The war solves nothing. It only exposes the fragility of human pride. 

The colonised hero

The fifth sign is the rise of the muscular warrior-ascetic — the new righteous warrior who thinks anger is a virtue. He believes he is restoring Hindu pride by shouting at others. But what he’s really doing is mimicking the coloniser.

The true kshatriya of old protected difference, not uniformity. He upheld dharma by maintaining balance, not by declaring holy wars. But the new warrior believes only in conquest — of minds, morals, and media. He doesn’t meditate; he reacts. He doesn’t debate; he attacks. He doesn’t understand that strength without self-awareness is just another form of fear.

This new wave of militant ‘Sanatanism’ is not decolonising Hinduism; it is re-colonising it, this time in saffron robes.

Losing the ability to reflect

The final sign of colonisation is the loss of reflection. The colonised mind believes that everything has a single answer. It wants clear rules, heroes, and villains. It cannot tolerate ambiguity. It forgets that Indian civilisation was built on layered truths — on multiplicity, paradox, and context.

India was once a civilisation that celebrated plurality. The new Sanatani hates plurality, and seeks the homogeneity of monotheism. That's colonisation.

Devdutt Pattanaik is the author of more than 50 books on mythology. X: @devduttmyth.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.