BBC documentary part of larger drive to keep Bharatiya mind colonised

The ongoing controversy over a documentary by the BBC after the Union government blocked its viewing in India is yet another example — not that there is a dearth of examples — of how colonised the minds are of many among us in India. The coloniser might have physically left the subcontinent more than 75 years ago, but they still are the mental masters of many people.

The content of the documentary is an extension of what has been propagated about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 2002 Gujarat riots as propaganda for more than two decades now. This biased and one-sided documentary fails to mention the real circumstances leading to riots.

In 2002 a coach of pilgrims and Kar Sevaks coming from Ayodhya was burnt down by a Muslim mob killing 59 people in the most ruthless manner by burning them alive. This was the key trigger point for subsequent riots in the state of Gujarat. Since 2002, no one from the BBC ever visited the families of those who had perished in Godhara, even mainstream Bhartiya media has ignored them. Despite this, the Hindus are being targeted and blamed for what happened in 2002 in Gujarat. In 254 Hindus were killed in post-Godhara riots across the state. Has anyone in the media tried to highlight the plight of the families who fell prey to the dastardly anti-Hindu violence in Godhara and then in the state of Gujarat? Ironically, it is the Hindus who end up getting all the blame. This is a part of the larger colonial narrative and it has been inflicted on Hindus through meticulous planning. The BBC documentary is a part of the larger colonial narrative which finds ample support in Bharat from the anti-Hindu radical left, jihadis and opportunistic politicians and political parties who are ready to bend backward to carry forward the policy of Muslim appeasement the seeds of which were sown during the colonial era.

The BBC documentary needs to be seen in this larger context as colonisation also implies enslaving the ‘collective minds’ of the colony. The process to colonise the mind of a society outlives political colonisation and is carried forward even when the colony is politically free. It perpetuates the control of the coloniser. Though the victim country may win independence, it does not get true freedom since the minds of its people are still controlled.

The coloniser often establishes a hegemony over the mind and thought process of the colonised, and controls all the aspects of the latter’s life: from social to religious, and from economic to political. The damage is two-fold: it denigrates the native culture, and exaggerates the culture of coloniser. This leads to cultural imperialism where gradually the native culture is replaced by the coloniser’s culture, where the native’s literature, culture, belief systems, education, values, art, etc. are downgraded.

Bharat  has been a victim of colonisation. The Britishers not only colonised Bharat but also colonised the Bharatiya mind. One of the tools used for this was the introduction of the English language as a medium of administrative work, and as a means of communication. The second tool used was through spreading Christianity across the subcontinent, which in turn looked down upon native religious and socio-cultural practices. The third tool was to distort history, where historical records were made to suit the coloniser’s narrative (obviously to the native’s disadvantage).

Bharat has a rich and diverse culture which was not only suppressed by the colonisers but is not given its due even today. From sartorial choices to cuisine, from entertainment to science, and from literature to art, we hold the West and Western standards above ours. Blindly aping the West, and yearning for the West’s approval of our achievements is a sign of a mind that is colonised.

One of the most dangerous consequences of colonialism was the development of an inferiority complex within society at large. This was an outcome of the systemic erasure of our social memory and glorious culture. An alien conceptual vocabulary and a hegemonic perspective was thrusted upon us that changed not only our worldview but also our views about ourselves. We started looking down upon ourselves. Hindu society was considered to be the bane of all the problems in the country. This biggest example was coinage of the term ‘Hindu rate of growth’  which implied an utterly slow growth rate and regressive tendencies .

We should be open to accepting and learning from other cultures, but not at the expense of ours.

Though Bharat got political independence in 1947 but we as a nation have remained a victim of cultural imperialism because our thought process is still colonised. In ‘Decolonising the Mind’, Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o stresses that true freedom can be attained only by freeing the mind. True freedom, as expressed by Rabindranath Tagore in his poem Gitanjali, “Where the mind is without fear and head is head high’, envisages not only physical freedom but freedom of mind as well.

The writer is an independent commentator. Views expressed are personal.

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