India, that is Bharat book review: J Sai Deepak makes pressing arguments about colonialism

Henry David Thoreau writes in his book Wild Apples ‘It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple-tree is connected with that of man’. If you replace the apple tree with ‘colony’ and man with ‘colonial power’ there emerges and idiom for much of the world’s history itself. For no former colony, however long its freedom may have been sustained, has truly recovered from the hangover of colonial rule. British rule cast such a weight on India’s socio-cultural spine that even seventy-five years after Independence we are irretrievably coiled in some way or the other with leftovers of this foreign invasion of our land, and most crucially, our minds. Lawyer and thinker J Sai Deepak in his book India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution argues that while the colonisation of the Indian landscape may have been reversed, the minds continue to be possessed, and ultimately handicapped by a historical narrative that the outsider set for us. Deepak, firstly, is not new to the limelight. He has argued some landmark cases often from the unpopular side of the debate including siding by the temple’s ritualistic right to deny women entry in the Sabarimala temple case. Deepak’s position that ‘the deity too should be able to assert its rights’ had caught the attention of the country in the landmark case. Deepak turns author for this sizeable book that is the first in a trilogy exploring various subjects related to the Indic civilizational history and its immediate anxieties. In India, that is Bharat, Deepak explores the underpinnings of the idea of Bharat, by first travelling into history to excavate the corrosion of the idea, then as lawyers do, offering evidence of its sustenance and subsequently paving the way for a decolonised interpretation of the constitution. The first half of the book traces the history of the Indian conscience as it was bruised and moulded by the intervention of the foreign. Deepak makes fairly accurate assertions that his critics perhaps can’t argue against. The writer suggests that ever since Christopher Columbus’ travels, the notional wisdom has been to consider “European history as the history of humanity”. Not only has this notion robbed others of agency, it has delegitimised the existence of the indigenous and the right of the indigenous people to assert their cultures. Deepak also suggests that ‘coloniality’ isn’t just the tangible occupation of land and resources but ‘a mindset that underpins or drives colonialism’. The repression of indigenous belief, the mere craving to voice native principles, Deepak argues, has begun to be seen as ‘illiberal’ compared to countries elsewhere, where it is celebrated as a sight of courage and agency. 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. Deepak also argues that a number of laws and acts passed by the British government can sound liberal in the modern context, but were actually repressive to the potency of indigenous life that not only wished to thrive but perhaps even threatened the colonial purview. This ‘façade of neutrality,’ Deepak believes, was a ‘Christian neutrality’ insofar as the means of achieving their own ‘missions’ could meet the intended ends. “The word secular must always be understood as Christian secular,” Deepak writes. The writer suggests that ‘decoloniality’ has to be discovered as much as it is waiting to be asserted in ways that can re-hinge the understanding of this history and the present of this country through an Indic context. Because his law background guides his writing, large parts of Deepak’s book are admittedly written with the bureaucratic tone of a Supreme Court Order. At some point you can feel the weight of the words squishing the simpler implications of what is being said. Because these are largely arguments, Deepak’s book provides substantial room for thought on both sides. There is no denying the religious motivations of the British mission but is majoritarianism the only viable replacement? Shouldn’t the means also adapt to the times, the globalised times so to speak? Also, granted European idealism perpetuated for the benefit of their imperial projects, are certain aspects in them not worth emulating? These are just some questions that arise in what is a rewarding and interesting take on India’s history, decoloniality and its implications for the asset we all prize above anything else – the constitution.