While reading V.S. Naipauls ‘An area of Darkness‘ I realized what people think of India. Moreover an Oscar to that book meant that his opinions about India were accepted as facts. I also see the intellectuals in this country thanking the British for they ‘United’ our nation and gave it an identity as nation. They claim that India was not a nation before British came here we were just a group of people. They civilized us, they brought us under one flag, and they made us a nation. Same history is taught in our textbooks and our respectable leaders like Nehru has confirmed it time to time.
Educated people of India along with the elite intellectuals in my opinion are far aways from the actual India that exists all over. That is why they fail to understand why India is worlds oldest nation. These intellectuals are just Macauley’s offspring who described them in his Minute as “who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” ...
A reader might ask me “if Indians were not as described my Macauley. Why do today even our textbooks and intellectuals agree to what he said?” There is a very logical answer to this. During the muslim rule learning was considered to be traitorous and hence there were many limitation over learning also our brahmins kept the knowledge away from so called lower castes. British instead of identifying these problems and nurturing the existing system decided to invent a new system which could have enabled them to stay here for a loger period may be forever. They underestimated the strength of genes that we inherited from giants like Arybhatta, varahmihir and Cautilyaa which gave birth to Gandhi, Vivekananda and Aurobindo who enlightened the people. akshar.frihost.net This entry was posted on Sunday, September 10th, 2006 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Main Category.
Is it not futile to quarrel with the past? It is a mixed-bag, and we can’t do anything about it. And certainly, we can’t change the systems, education or otherwise. What we can really do, is at present with our eyes on the future. We can read the right things individually as well as in small groups. That would be the springboard for right action in our respective fields. For, theory, being the crux of any praxis, is more important.
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