Deepak also attempts to debunk the common argument that the idea of India as a nation state did not exist before the mutiny of 1857. That there existed a rough outline of ‘the civilisation state’ that was clinically, greedily operated upon by the intruder’s mindset. This mindset, Deepak believes, is for all its posturing of modernism and progressiveness a ‘Christian exercise’. Nobody can really argue the religious inspirations for Columbus’ missions and the British government’s casual insertion of missionary ideas into the Indian social curriculum. Deepak’s arguments about the existence and therefore pending reclamation of indigenous consciousness, of an ‘Indic civilization,’ are appealing in terms of ideas and can to some extent even be corroborated. Often the evidence of what existed can be found in what was being systematically wiped out. We are then exposed to the nature of colonization and how it affected the consciousness of our people to such an extent that the only way the native felt they could redeem their dignity was by "adopting European culture and thought processes". It made them forget and detest their own roots and made them think of their past and history as a colossal failure, thus undermining their self-confidence. The entire colonization process aims at universalizing and standardizing ways of life instead of allowing the diversity of different groups and societies to flourish. I have to admit upon reading all the curated passages of the proceedings in UK Parliament and those of TB Macaulay, Charles Grant, Lord Moira and including Rammohun Roy washed me with a range of usual emotions but culminating in a strong sense of shame of being a product of a covert, diabolical, systematic debasement and travesty. Certain passages were downright nauseous, revealing their utter contempt and the warped sense of reason (justification) was just unbelievable and clearly delusional. It was a deliberate insidious strategy to strip us of our self dignity and respect through denigration and undermining Dharmic OET. J Sai Deepak’s book India That is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation and Constitution quite unsettled me. I was bewildered by all manner of information that began swirling around me. The author on an over-drive with passion for his subject was difficult to keep pace with.

In this process, J sai Deepak doesn't shy away from exposing so called reformists like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who wrote letters to British government asking to incentivize English Education which is based on mathematics, natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy and other useful sciences and stop supporting Sanskrit system of education, which would be best calculated to keep this country in darkness. Till the day we see our morality through the eyes of colonizers we will always end up seeing our self as savages, brutes and uncivilized. However, the Hindu and Muslim leaders did come together to fulfil their individual goals and put up a pretence of interfaith harmony to extract better bargains from their colonial overlords. Deepak explains that while Hindus had the realisation of self-government in mind, the Muslims, on the other hand, wanted a communal electorate in a democratic form of government proposed to be introduced in the country, with a higher proportion of seats reserved in every province of the country compared to their numerical strength. He goes on to cite various instances when the European and Middle East consciousness asserted itself—from the interference of the Church in India’s daily affairs to the two-nation theory propounded by the likes of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, Syed Ahmed Khan, Syed Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and other subsequent Muslim ideologues—which played a massive role in suppressing India’s civilisational identity and supplanting it with imported notions of ‘Nation States’ and ‘pan-Islamism’.

Reviews

This book raises many issues which need serious thinking about – but with the divisions we have in society today, a progressive debate is difficult. I liked the sections which elaborate on the discussions on how the country should be named. Many had reservations on “India” and preferred “Bharat” or “Bharatvarsha”; finally “India, that is Bharat” is what was finally adopted as part of the constitution allowing for the usage of both. India’s medieval and colonial history and its journey towards a constitutional entity have always been told through a specific perspective, keeping in line with the Nehruvian-Marxist ideology that gained currency in the wake of India’s independence and which wielded a monopolistic influence on the literature produced since August 1947. Very few authors have ventured to challenge the leftist narrative, much less provide a scholarly exposition of calling out the obvious bias in India’s history-telling and its deep-rooted contempt for its civilisational history and evolution. With his profound knowledge of the legal realm, Deepak marshals persuasive evidence to highlight the enduring nature of Bharat. Armed with his findings, he sets out to carve a path towards a decolonised interpretation of the Constitution. His aim is to rectify distortions and breathe new life into the true essence of Bharat, restoring its authenticity and reclaiming its rightful place. Edit: I'm giving up linking the second image here. It shows for a second and vanishes. Why can't it be easy to upload an image directly like other platforms?

India, That Is Bharat, the first book of a comprehensive trilogy, explores the influence of European 'colonial consciousness' (or 'coloniality'), in particular its religious and racial roots, on Bharat as the successor state to the Indic civilisation and the origins of the Indian Constitution. It lays the foundation for its sequels by covering the period between the Age of Discovery, marked by Christopher Columbus' expedition in 1492, and the reshaping of Bharat through a British-made constitution-the Government of India Act of 1919. This includes international developments leading to the founding of the League of Nations by Western powers that tangibly impacted this journey. Many laws and Acts passed by the British may sound liberal today but they also suppress indigenous systems. The façade of neutrality according to him was Christian neutrality while the word secular must always be understood as Christian secularism, since India never had the problem of separating the religious from the state. Thus he suggests that decoloniality should rediscover Indian history through an Indian consciousness. NDMA has also informed that advanced machinery is being airlifted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to replace the damaged part of the auger machine that broke down earlier today

About the contributors

There has to be something that guides our country, and that is the Constitution of India. However, the Constitution cannot be static and the very fact that there have been 105 amendments of the Constitution since it was enacted in 1950 (including the very first amendment in 1951 itself) means the Constitution will grow and change along with the nation. In fact, the East India Company is more sinned against than sinning in this regard. It would have been quite content to be left free to go after gold, rather than market god. It was the British crown, parliament and clergy that mandated it to evangelise, using part of its profits. When direct rule by the crown followed, evangelical fervour was further stoked, with state protection given to the church’s activities. All the while a sanctimonious charade was maintained that the ruler will not intrude in the natives’ ways, however distasteful they are thought to be. It will help to first read Dr Gautam Sen’s magisterial 'Foreword' to it. And, read Sen again after you finish the book.

It must be noted that as the chapters progress further and till it ends the author has done a tremendous job setting forth a viewpoint that without a shade of doubt fleshes out certain imperatives which have guided the whole process of colonization and all the other factors which speak of its reality. The most remarkable job that the author has done is delineating the relevant facts which instill a sense of perspective in the reader and make them realize that there does exist a gap between the modernist imperative and valid reasoning behind the same, for the idea of the same stems from colonization. A) The arts, media and literature space is usually dominated by Left-liberals. In India this was neatly aligned with the dominant Congress’s ideology. And they are good at cancelling, harassing dissenting Right-Wing opinion. In the last section, author talks about of Government of India Act 1919, which was a project of eternal reform through the means of the constitution whose ultimate goal was the colonisation of natives, to gradually educate and prepare the natives for self governance without losing any love for British empirical commonwealth and this in turn had a direct impact on structure of Bharat's current constitution as well. At the same time in 1919, a global project League of Nations was introduced to bring the world under the ambit of same European Christian colonialism. If one thinks it through, when coloniality rises, the acronym OET will have lost its first letter, because its indigenous organic past will have been slayed and put away as dead. It will have equipped itself with a single book to serve its epistemological needs and a single drill for its ritual routines. On whether you feel enriched by the breadth and depth of the OET you are heir to, or find it retrograde, depends your vulnerability to coloniality.Education is another aspect where the colonizer went to great lengths to erase any sense of pride associated with their past and history, as amply illustrated by Macaulay's famous "Minute on Education." He goes into great detail on the Government of India acts of 1813, 1853, 1858 and the first Constitution of India of 1919 and what was the basis of their formation, their intent, their methods of achieving it and how they planned to support proselytisation through various missionaries. Here, the brilliance of Deepak the lawyer and student of law shines brightly through the such that the entire left-liberal gang will be thrown into the obscurities of dark hell (pun entirely intended). This Volume-1, begins with a long section (over 25 per cent of the book’s length) identifying what Bharatiyas need to combat. According to Sai Deepak, the so-called liberal laws and Acts passed by the British were actually regressive towards indigenous systems which were threatening to the colonisers. The so-called neutrality of the British constitution and the separation of the church and the state were Christian ideas that were used to achieve their own goals. Thus decoloniality requires an understanding of the colonial period and its continuation in modern India must change to an Indian point of view, says the author. He defines four forms of colonialism: exploitative colonialism, settler colonialism, surrogate colonialism and internal colonialism, the first two being the best-known. By ‘coloniality’, he refers to the thought process that advances the goal of colonisation, namely colonisation of the mind through complete domination of the culture of the colonised society. Of all the sources and forms of colonialism and coloniality the world has witnessed, none equals the Western European version of imperialism, which is seen as the descendant of and the successor to European colonialism.

To comment on this book in conclusion, I'll mention what supreme court said regarding the book written by rana ayub — " it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value. " He makes no attempt to understand that the humanities are inherently subjective and all the evidence that is provided by scholars of humanities is purely interpretations of observations and should be judged based on their utility in real life rather than their ideological underpinnings. In the first two books of the trilogy: ‘ India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution‘ and ‘ India, Bharat and Pakistan: The Constitutional Journey of a Sandwiched Civilisation‘, JSD takes on the path less travelled, expounding how the concept of “coloniality” extends beyond the physical occupation of land and exploitation of resources and is a product of a deep-seated mindset that fuels colonialism. He traces the individual and combined impact of European consciousness through British rule and the Middle East consciousness through centuries of Muslim rule on the Indic consciousness, their role in shaping India’s constitutional journey, and the bloody partition of the country. The first section introduces the readers to the basic precepts of Colonisation and what it connotes and how the subjugation occurs. The author here has aptly presented the view as professed by scholars that society has the right to interpret coloniality and the decoloniality must be defined as something which it has experienced itself and at the same time has aptly presented the example with the pervasion that the European form of colonialism had over the world. The next chapter brings forth another trend which came in the form of a greater urge to assert a sense of autonomy and be a sovereign and the same came at the form of Native elites, but the same suffered inherent limitations for a positive digression from the pre-established precepts of independence which revolved around politico-legal sphere could not take place. The further chapters aptly present the pervasion of the European form of colonization and the relevant ways for the same which rely on institutionalizing and how the same has acted as a tool to fortify their imperatives of coloniality.

Ties between India and Canada have been strained after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made allegations of Indian involvement in the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil earlier this year. Nijjar was shot dead outside Gurdwara in Canada's Surrey on June 18.