-Shubham Verma
We
Indians have constructed thousands of temples all over the world. But these
temples could become museums or archeological monuments within a few years because
we are building the structures, publishing books but we are not educating our
children about our culture and beliefs. Our tradition is very profound and
meaningful; it is pity that we are not explaining its beauty to our younger
generations. As a community, we spend too much resources on parties,
non-educational events, movies etc but we forget to invest on our true culture
and traditions. Because of this several western people are taking advantage of
this and they are controlling our educational institutes, especially in the
field of humanities and Indic studies.
Indian
education or Indology is highly controlled by western academicians who control
the education system to control the mindset of our nation. These academics
preach tolerance to us and chide us in the name of free speech and they
themselves control most of the publishing houses, internet discussion forums,
educational institutions and media. They completely suppress any dissenting
voices by maligning the image of their critics as being communal, emotional,
and ignorant. If they truly believe in openness and in free speech, then they
should be willing to debate in public forums but they never do that because
they do not have enough material to convince the people. They in fact supports
various terrorist movements in India, they support terrorists in the name of
human rights and the secession of Kashmir from India.
Wilhelm
Halbfass, the Indologist at U-Penn wrote:
“In
the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer
meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under
conditions shaped by western ways of thinking”[i]
American
and British organizations are heavily sponsoring our English
speaking elite scholars to research according to western framework. Earlier
also Britisher’s used the same tactics to destabilize our nation. The British Census of India was one such
process to represent India in British categories, while pretending to use
Indian categories. This becomes the basis for re-engineering India’s society to
fit into rigid castes, it has continued after independence and has become the
center of India’s politics today.
Tzvetan
Todorov analyses anthropology historically used the term “new trinity” to
describe
“The
old style soldier: it consists of scholar, priest, and a merchant”: The scholar
collects information about the country, second promotes its “spiritual annexation”
and the merchant “makes the profits”.[ii]
This
is what is actually happening
in India, Western
anthropologists use native people of India as informants, who are typically very
poor and less educated villagers paid to produce the data. Scholars take such
data and filter it through western lens, then legitimize it with western peers
who are part of their own academic system, and too often assert this false
construction as ‘the truth’. Irony is that, there are hardly any independent
surveys in the field to ascertain the truth about the data or knowledge
produced by westerners. They not only distort our traditional knowledge but
sometimes they plagiarized or steal it for their own benefit.
In
that way many ancient Indian inner science discoveries are being
misappropriated or plagiarized. Some examples are: ‘Lucid Dreaming’ is a western
name used for nidra yoga, similarly Stanford’s LaBerge
is nowadays the acknowledged discoverer. ‘Vipassna’ is now repackaged as
Kabat-Zinn’s ‘Mindfulness meditation’. Herb Benson repackaged Transcendental
meditation into ‘Relaxation response’ and earns a million dollar, claiming
these as his discoveries. Thomas Berry, Father Keating, and others have
constructed the new liberal Christianity, suing Indic appropriations. This is
only a small part of long list: the westerners are using large amount of Indian
knowledge of every field including physics, astro-physics, astrology,
spiritualism, mathematics and biology etc, without acknowledging the actual
Indian source.
Europeans
did the same thing with Americans after persecuting their native population of
“Red Indians”. They changed the syllabus of text books and they are teaching in
their text books that “America was ‘discovered’ in 1492”, if it is true than
what about the millions of Native population of Americans who lived in America
for thousands of years. It became an authentic discovery only when Europeans
registered it as such. Just because land owned by the Native Americans had not
been recorded in European registration systems (formal papers), their ownership
was declared illegitimate. Much of what happened during the renaissance and
enlightenment in Europe was based on the appropriation of Indian and Asian
civilizations, and yet these civilizations were demonized to justify
colonialism.[iii] The position of western mindset
stated quite openly in many cases, is that discovery occurs only when the west legitimizing
it. This is a completely racist theory of knowledge developed by west that
denies the rights of non-westerners.
Now,
we again come to Indian scenario, Today Indians have occupies many high
positions in the fields of science, technology business and other traditions
but we are lacking in our cultural studies and Indology. Westerners still have
stronghold on Indology. The Indian scholars that identifies with Indic
traditions publically and who have actual knowledge of Indian philosophies and
religion are often not the ones whom the western academe dialogs with as
spokespersons for the Indian tradition. But instead of talking with Indian
knowledgeable scholars, they made a layer of elites from within the colonized
culture who are groomed to become proxies for the tradition. Such persons are
commonly referred to as Macaulayites, after Mcauley, who developed the Indian
intellectual breed of sepoys who served the British rule. These elite Indians, are
usually remote controlled by a western incentive system- of jobs, visas,
foreign travel, grants and various forms of carrier advancement. Many westernized
Indians are convinced that our indigenous tradition is a backward one, and that
their main aim on life is to uproot it and replace it with superior western
import. They often consider biases against Indian traditions as a great
compliment to their own sense of modernity. When this mental slavery is pointed
out to them, it often evokes severe anger and defensiveness in them.
Such
Indian scholars are often unfamiliar with the masses and culture of India. They
know mainly western thought and hermeneutics. Few have been educated in
Sanskrit or the Indian classics, but they also take Sanskrit as a language of
oppression. The problem with these western elitist scholars is that they know
only western view of Indology, these elitists often brand anyone speaking
assertively for Indic traditions as saffronist, pro-BJP, fundamentalist,
fascist, fanatic, etc.
Earlier,
the British did facilities management for India’s Nawabs and Rajas- they operated
their cities, armies, operated the courts, collected taxes on their behalf,
educated their citizens as they deemed fit etc. The local rulers were the
clients and the British east India Company was the facilities manager. As a
part of this facilities management ‘contract’, the British also became trustees
of the education and scholarship. They researched about Indian traditions,
translated and interpreted the texts. They constructed the famous
interpretation of the “Manusmriti” so that they can say that they were in fact
enforcing Hindu law in ruling India. Hindus continue to accept this facilities
management arrangement by letting westerners control Indian intellectual identity.
Other than Hindus, there is no big world tradition so abandoned intellectually
by its own people. The criticism of Hinduism in academics is done in such a way
that it appears to be fair. The evidence is presented as authentic hindu
understanding, and the motive is claimed to be the well being of the oppressed
Hindus- to save them from themselves. There are western scholar giants now
dominating Hindu studies, who have usurped the ultimate authority that
traditionally belonged to the Vedas.
These
western sepoys are the main reason behind the ignorance of our students. Today
our students are being taught in their universities that every good theory had
come from the west. For example in several philosophical subjects they learn
the names of Aristotle and Plato, in English literature they learn about
Cicero, Shakspere and Julius Caesar. Even ‘Bodhayan prameya’ of mathematics has
been dubbed as ‘Pythogorus theorem’ etc. This is the condition of Indian text
books in schools as well as in higher education. Everywhere, Indian children
are studying about west. This is the tragic state of Indian Classics in India’s
education. India can revive it by teaching or making its own swadeshi
curriculum. The equivalent to Greek Classics would be India’s Vedas, Puranas
and other Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil texts. In a Indic education system, students
would learn about Panini, Patanjali, Buddha, Nagarjuna, Bhartahari, Shankara,
Aryabhatta, Kalidasa and dozens of other great classical thinkers produced by
India. Unfortunately, in the name of modernity, progress and political
correctness, curriculum of Indian classics have been banished from Indian
higher education. The reason behind this is that the nexus of Indology or Indic
studies remains in Western hands, almost as though decolonization had never
happened. The top level academic publishers, journals, universities and
conferences are either in the west or running largely by western lobby, and
funded by western private organizations, church and governmental interests.
Furthermore,
the marginalization of India’s heritage in its education system, particularly
in the English medium system of education that produces most of the leaders of
modern Indian society, has resulted in a culturally lost generation. Product of
this education is today’s self-alienated, cynical youth prevalent in many
places, especially in elite positions.[iv] One more great disservice has
been done to Indian classics is equating them with religion. The sheer
magnitude of India’s classical texts is over one hundred times as large as that
of the Greek Classics still Indian classics has not being taught in world
universities. This is because the knowledge representation system is under their
control; hence they usually decide ‘what’ belongs ‘where’. Only when something
falls under western control does it become legitimate.
Several
left wing scholars in India are also writing against Hinduism to prove their
Chinese and Russian masters that they are true atheists. In order to prove that
they are true atheists, many leftist Indians line up to prove how much they
hate Hinduism. This agenda, built on a false definition of secularism, has been
taken to such level that Sanskrit has been demonized, because it is seen as a
part of the evil Brahmin conspiracy used to oppress lower caste people of
Indian society. The hub of left wing JNU has fought hard to resist the
establishment of a Sanskrit department and Indian classics department ( later
Sanskrit department had started) , whereas they are proudly teaching European
languages and their classics. On several occasions they have burnt Manusmriti
and other Sanskrit books to prove that they are secular. This is the result of complete
ignorance about the knowledge and value of Sanskrit literature. Researchers
believe that there are about thirty million distinct manuscripts in Sanskrit
which are not properly documented by modern scholars. The vast majority of
Sanskrit text is not about religion but it covers a diverse territory of
subjects like medicine, botany, astrophysics, metaphysics, aesthetics, fiction,
jokes, political thought, logic, mathematics, philosophy and so forth. But, no
one cares about it because praising Sanskrit, does not provide them jobs or
foreign trips.
The
new education policy is going to be introduced after few months. MHRD is asking
for suggestions from the citizens in MyGov portal. Every Indian citizen should
ask for a pro-Indian swadeshi education system for the future of their children
and for the future of the nation. If government changes the syllabus according
to Indian swadeshi mindset without thinking about the vote bank politics than
only our education system can come out of the control of the west. It is the
best time to revive the syllabus of humanities and social sciences in India, if
it happens than last footprints of colonialism will be extinguished and India
will become more self reliant and self dependent.
Regards,
Shubham Verma
(theshubhamhindi@gmail.com)
[i]
W. Halbfass, India and Europe, first
edition, (Delhi: MLBD), 44.
[ii]
Tzvetan Todorov, The conquest of America,175.
[iii]
J.J. Clark’s book Oriental Enlightenment.
[iv]
Rajiv Malhotra’s book Acedemic Hinduphobia
