India – Experiences of Partha Majumdar

Post Colonisation

When I study the development of human society from the time Homo Sapiens came into existence, the following aspects come to my notice.

Homo Sapiens developed in various parts of the world; possibly making its origin at the Southern part of Africa.
From a solitary origin (just like any other animal), Homo Sapiens learnt to live in a society for the common good of the Homo Sapiens.
As the social structure became more populous, there were needs for rules and regulations to govern the society.

(Till this stage, I have tried documenting in my book “Origin of the King” [ISBN: 978-1-4828-2026-3 (sc) , 978-1-4828-2027-0 (e), Order on Amazon])

These needs for governance gave rise to need for Philosophies. Early philosophies have been documented by the Greek. However, philosophies did exist in other civilisations as well including the Harappan civilisation. As far as I understand, there was no attempt at this stage for the universalisation of a particular philosophy. In spite of interactions between civilisations, Egyptians seemed happy with their philosophy, the Greeks seemed happy with their philosophy, etc. There are even accounts of mutual respect for the individual philosophies. However, when Men like Alexander The Great felt the need for more territorial control, there started the process for imposing one philosophy over the others.

At some point in history (possibly around the times of Mr. Jeremy Bentham), suddenly someone seems to have the notion that there was a need for unifying the entire human creation around a single philosophy. This is possibly the time when a particular society was earmarked as the reference point or the benchmark for being called a civilised society. This period has somehow coincided with the time when the British travelled to India to do trade.

I am no time traveller. However, I feel that the East India Company would have had the support of the English society as the intellectuals would have felt that people of countries like India need being brought to the benchmark that they had established in their society. Apart from the need for precious loot and human necessities, the good people of the British Society would have possibly subscribed to the colonisation of India based on this need.

As I realise more about the ways of the modern Indian society and the modern Indian mindset and the modern Indian ways of life, I realise that the British has embezzled their thinking about the construct of a human society so deeply into the Indian mindset that the Indians have altogether forgotten about the human society they developed long before society formed in areas around Britain. Though Indians like watching mythological stories on Television and watching serials like Ramayana and Mahabharata on Televisions, their idea of a modern society is firmly built around what the British seem to have taught us. Even in our development of our society, we are constantly benchmarking against the Western World as to where we stand.

I do understand that a legacy of 200 years is not easy to shed. Though I am born in independent India, it is clear to me that every piece of education inside me is what British would have put into me had I been born in the pre-independence era. Now that India has enjoyed more than 60 years of self-rule, it is time that we try creating a society for India around Indian needs and Indian values. At some point of time, we have to stop importing philosophies applied in other parts of the world and duplicate them on our civilisation with minor tailoring. It is altogether a different question whether this will at all work as we Indians may not have anything Indian left in us. But then rules of living actually depends on the land we live in. And our land has not changed. Mother India has always stood high and erect. Mother India will always continue to stand tall and erect.