India between empires: A reality check

Just ten years ago, social media in India was flooded with insults like Macaulay-putra and Presstitutes. There was open contempt for intellectuals. There was a movement to say how Max Mueller and Macaulay had destroyed India, but a new Bharat was emerging - one that would decolonise itself, become the world's Vishwaguru, control global discourse, stop wars and teach humanity the secrets of dharma. NRIs cheered loudly, celebrating what they called India's true freedom and triumphant return to greatness.Yet today, the picture looks very different. India seems to be bowing before both China and the United States, countries that eat beef and pork, food held in contempt by Satvik folks, the purest of the pure in India. China claims Indian land, and our own laser-eyed foreign minister admits we cannot push back because our economy depends on Chinese imports. In the conflicts unfolding in West Asia and around the Strait of Hormuz, we are being told whom to buy petrol from and whom not to. Not one Indian leader challenges a tweet that refers to India as 'hellhole'. Is this discretion or submission? Have we been reduced to Trump-dasis, minions of Trump?On public forums, journalists argue that India need not play a mediating role; it is perfectly fine, they say, if Pakistan does it instead. Rather than competing with great nations like America and China, India finds satisfaction in measuring itself against a failed state like Pakistan. While China pulls people out of poverty, our government pulls people out of voter lists.At this moment, it is worth reminding ourselves of a deeper historical truth: India has always been sandwiched between East Asia and West Asia. From the West, came horses. From the East came gold. India itself was the land of cotton - it had neither metal nor horses.Many Indians proudly claim that we never invaded foreign lands. This is not entirely true. The Chola kings, backed by South India's powerful merchant lobby, sailed across the seas a thousand years ago and tried to control the Malacca Straits. They also invaded Sri Lanka for its copper mines - and it was during this period, around 10th century AD, that Sri Lanka came to be associated with Ravana's Lanka. Whether we call these expeditions "invasions" is a matter of perspective, but they certainly were not the conquests of peace-loving sages. Significantly, during this time period, what Hindus referred to as 'Ram-Setu' came to be known in the Arab world as 'Adam's Bridge'.Indian ideas did travel - but mostly eastward. The Ramayana spread to Cambodia and Java, where Hindu temples still stand. Westward, however, religious ideas could not penetrate easily, because the West was already shaped by strong monotheistic traditions. What did travel West was India's secular literature: Panchatantra and the Shukasaptati journeyed across, eventually giving rise to works like Tutinama and Arabian Nights. Arabs saw India as the land of idolatry. They still refer to idols as 'buth', a word derived from Buddha.The exchange ran both ways. Chinese ideas of immortality, of yin and yang, deeply influenced Indian tantric thought - including alchemical ideas and concepts like ida and pingala. From China came paper, pen and gunpowder. India was never an isolated civilisation discovering everything on its own; it was a great crossroads, constantly absorbing and adapting.Mosques appeared on Indian coasts from 700 AD and influenced ideas of devotion and ideas such as all-powerful and all-merciful god who is formless. Under Islamic influence, many Hindus chose the formless or nirguna form of the divine over the saguna form, enshrined in temples. The Nath-Yogis said, 'Alakh Niranjan' arguing that their god had no form and was invisible and had no blemish. They rejected temples. Was this under Islamic influence? North India chose to see divinity through song and theatre, but in South India kings established grand temples with gopurams, defiantly showing idols of gods and goddesses.This historical reality matters today because the Vishwaguru fantasy ignores it. India's strength has never come from imagined civilisational supremacy or from screaming insults at "Macaulay's children". It came from being open, curious and skilled at trade while remaining honest about our limits. A nation that cannot stand up to China, that flatters Trump despite his contempt, and that competes only with Pakistan is not a Vishwaguru. It is a country in denial.Decolonisation is not achieved by referring to intellectuals as Urban-Naxals or rewriting textbooks. It is achieved by building genuine economic, intellectual and military strength - and by accepting the truth that India has always been part of a connected, interdependent world. Pretending otherwise is not pride. It is not decolonisation. It is self-deception.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/vzwron6