Dear friends,

Although it is greatly debatable to buy the argument of our Prime Minister pushed
forward a few years ago at an award function in United Kingdom that it was only because of the
British that we Indians became civilized, and while this statement was received with substantial
discomfort by certain sections of Indian society, and while most of the people in the subcontinent
completely ignored the unacceptable gesture of the gratitude by the Prime Minister, yet it is
equally significant to note that the proposition actually never received considerable opposition,
refusal or rejection from the mainstream intelligentsia including our ever vigilant and critical
(free) media. One of the most understandable reasons could be the prevalence of a sense of
acceptance of the fact (?) that we owe a lot to our erstwhile rulers for our present day
achievements, if there are any. The other equally important reason may be the overwhelming
indifference to our past and historical antecedents amongst our extensively discussed emerging
great Indian middle class that is more towards future (read career). This should not suggest that
being career-oriented or future-directed bears some uncherished immoral attitude but yes it
sometimes totally avoids uncomfortable discussions and debates. Therefore, we did not see any
section of our society advising to have duly informed and pretty systematic debate on the whole
issue of what we have actually received from the colonial rule and what we have really lost
because of that. Any formulation about our historical background needs to be essentially
associated with the careful study of the social, economic, agricultural, cultural, political and
other relevant dimensions of our community of yesteryears. The contextual and calculated
interpretations of events of the past may sometimes have intoxicating efforts but we have
constantly been subjected to deliberate attempts of toxification and detoxification of Indian
history by politically aligned historians and historically blind politicians.
The discourse, if we could really find it, has revolved around two key issues. One is that
strengthens the existing and systematically disseminated idea of Indian history being the finest
narration of defeats, discrimination, discontent, exclusion, fragmentation, intolerance, ignorance
and infighting of various sections of the society divided fundamentally on numerous counts. This
idea was principally forwarded by our cruel colonial masters for serving their ultimate purpose of
creating an overwhelming sense of inferiority amongst the ruled society so that they might not
think of any kind of relief from their subjugation. This provided them the much required
legitimacy to rule and gave reasons to continue to rule. This also inculcated a sense of
helplessness among the masses (from the standards of our rulers) and created some sense of
gratefulness towards these so called torch-bearers of equality, justice and liberty for showing
them the right way and keeping our geographically separated and politically unstable regions
together so as to enable us to start thinking of an entity called nation. And here begins our
agenda of nation building which inadvertently includes a formidable sense of pitty, if not shame,
for the shortcomings and failures of our ancient and medieval community in its functioning as a
modernized rational, accommodative and cohesive unit.
The second issue, although a natural corollary of the earlier one, was purposeful
expansion of the fear of re-living the forgettable past by some of our crony nationalists which
could in any case jeopardize the agenda of building a modern, secular and democratic nation
growing on the principles of liberalism. This also had to necessarily juxtapose any attempts of
recognizing the need of greater understanding of the scattered elements of national unity at
philosophical, cultural or emotional levels by way of discarding every manifestation or
expression through terming it regressive, retrograde, fundamental, communal, mythological,
exclusive and irrational and thus deserving obvious disrespect. Therefore, demystification of the
existing and long continuing icons was almost essential and was incidentally performed with
incredible sincerity and precision. And all this paved the way for smooth and unquestioned
acceptance of the ideas, constructs, concepts, theories, generalizations, and institutions, books
and so on imported from the West making us immensely vulnerable and susceptible to newer and
newer experiments with untruth. Thanks to our ever acclaimed modern (read western)
educational grounding that we have actually never ever thought of questioning this predominant
supremacy of our path-finders in any field of human activity. We have thus converted ourselves
into obedient and subservient followers of the great people who have owned the unbearable
responsibility of showing us the right way of progress and overall development which, although
they themselves are not satisfied with.
The whole scenario may appear either to be amusing or depressing but I would term it
disgusting. Let me concentrate on our own discipline only. Why it is so that the syllabi of our
discipline throughout the world does not comprise of any of our political thinkers and
philosophers? Why it is so that almost none of us is one amongst those who are considered to be
great political scientists of contemporary period? Why it is so that our institutions of higher
learning and research have largely failed to produce academic leaders? Why it is so that for
understanding our own past and historical institutions we have to depend upon the interpretations
provided by people not belonging to our nation? Why it is so that instead of having pride, we
have, in fact, developed a miserable sense of shame for our otherwise appreciated past? Why it is
so that we have been alarmingly unable to present before the academic world any worth
mentioning or worth studying concept, idea, theory or philosophy for last so many decades? Why
it is so that our teaching and research departments in the universities and colleges have failed to
evolve themselves as the platforms of impartial and serious intellectual pursuit? Why it is so that
most of us are seamlessly engaged in stereo type studies and researches ostensively orchestrated
by the people who are completely ignorant of our ground realities? Why it is so that neither the
political class nor the social community ever thinks of looking to us for any kind of solutions to
any kind of problems faced by our fellow citizens? Why it is so that we have substantially failed
in our social responsibilities of producing good citizenry?
The questions are numerous and the answers are missing. As always, I wish to propose
that the soil of the nation knows the medicine. The history of the country can identity the
malaise. The mind of the community can diagnose the symptoms. The feeling of oneness can
prescribe for the pathology. The love for this motherland can cure the disease. This is the only
solution but we will have to have faith in it. We shall have to provide examples to new
generation by our acts as our ancient poet emphatically pronounces-

iil-- ii iil-- ii iil-- ii iil-- ii
isl i l--n-| isl i l--n-| isl i l--n-| isl i l--n-|
n iin in n iin in n iin in n iin in
- - l,|| - - l,|| - - l,|| - - l,||

Meerut
11.11.11 (Sanjeev Kumar Sharma)