Indianization of India III

"The British introduced western Christian modernity to this landmass and established a unitary state either governed from Kolkuta or from Delhi. Mumbai dominated the mercantile society and through an English education in medium as well in substance the British were able to create a middle class that gradually gravitated towards the west in attitudes and epistemology."


by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(November 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Aryanization or Bharatization of Dambadiva probably took centuries as the Vedic culture had to spread from north west to the south and the east. As we mentioned last week Bharath was a reincarnation of Dambadiva, though the land mass would have deferred somewhat. We identify the people in the east and north east who had not been fully Vedicized or Aryanized during the time of Buddha and a few centuries before that as Ardha Vedic. Prince Siddhartha himself belonged to this category and so were those who migrated to Lanka around this period as symbolized by Vijaya and his men.

However, in this series of articles we are interested in the transformation of Bharath to India or the next reincarnation. Here again there would have been changes in the landmass which is not very much relevant to us. Bharath was never a single country or a state and very often the landmass was ruled by a number of different dynasties at different times. A dynasty was replaced by another dynasty sometimes altering the boundaries of the region that came under the particular dynasty. There were no Tamil kingdoms or Hindi kingdoms for that matter but only kingdoms such as Chera, Chola, Pandya, Vijayanagar, Pallava, etc.

Some authors are of the opinion that the word Sindhu was used by the Arabs to identify the land to the east of the river Indu. However, it is clear that even during the Mogul empire there was no country called India that extended from modern Pakistan to Bangladesh to the east including the states in the South extending up to modern Kerala and Tamil Nadu. India was a creation of the British, whoever gave the name first to a part of the landmass.

The British introduced western Christian modernity to this landmass and established a unitary state either governed from Kolkuta or from Delhi. Mumbai dominated the mercantile society and through an English education in medium as well in substance the British were able to create a middle class that gradually gravitated towards the west in attitudes and epistemology. The British had a certain idea of the east in general and India in particular, and the Indian middle class was able to fit into the image that the British had, while trying to imitate the British. However, the vast majority of the masses were untouched by the changes that were initiated by the British and the former could not be transformed into a new nation by the British.

The Indianization is nothing but absorption of western Christian modernity by some sections of the people living in what was called India by the British, especially through education and business. Though there was an India created by the British for themselves as a political unit for governing, there was no India for the people living in "India" until a middle class (including of course the upper crust of Maharajas and others) that absorbed western Christian modernity was created. Before the middle class was created there was no India for anybody in that landmass though the British used the name, and an India existed only for them and may be for other westerners. With Indianization the people living in what was called India by the British recognized for themselves that there was an India. However, the Indianization had no or very little impact on the vast majority of the others living in India of the British, and as far as they were concerned they continued to live in Bharath with their local allegiances.

The India of British was different from Bharath in more than one way. Bharath was never one country but India was one country from the very beginning. One of the purposes of English education in British India was to instill in the middle class a sense of belonging to one country. This was to be achieved through the medium of instruction namely English, and the process of Christianization in culture, though not in religion began in earnest. However, ties with old Bharath were great and people had their local loyalties.

This was especially the case with the classes other than the middle class, and it was not an easy task to unify all the people under one flag. Even the middle class had its differences and those parts of India that could not be called Bharath did not see eye to eye with the part of India that could be identified with Bharath. This was mainly a cultural problem as Bharath could not be amalgamated with the rest of India even through an English education and cricket.

Bharath had become Bharath through a long process by creating a common core culture through Hinduism. Dambadiva did not become Bharath overnight. It took several centuries for Dambadiva to be "reborn" as Bharath as evidenced from Vedic religions. Though many people including Shri Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan had claimed that Buddha was born a Hindu, lived a Hindu and died a Hindu, it was not the case. There was no Hinduism at the time Prince Siddhartha was born and in the Shakya kingdom we reckon that the culture was Ardha Vedic as the north east of Dambadiva had not been vedicized at that time.

Vedic religions evolved through time to finally end up as Hinduism. It was a long process and the sacrificing of animals in the Vedic religions were dropped after absorbing certain aspects from Buddhism and Jainism, The Vedic religions were the outcome of the mixing of Aryan cultures and pre Vedic cultures in Dambadiva. However, Buddhism and Jainism that sprung from pre Vedic and Ardha Vedic cultures retained the "ahimsa" aspect of the pre Vedic Dambadiva cultures. The Vedic religions after evolution through centuries and probably after Sankaracharya who "created" Advaitha Vedantha through Nirgun Brahaman after adopting Sunyatha of Nagarjunapada shed the animal sacrifices in favour of ahimsa of Buddhism and Jainism, though the concept is not the same in the two religions. Thus Vedic religions managed to incorporate Ardha Vedic and pre Vedic concepts to evolve into Hinduism.

It is the ability to incorporate from other cultures that had been the strength of Hinduism and later it was able to absorb Bhakthivada or the cult of Bhakthi as found in the South into its edifice. Though there were differences in the local cultures a common core culture tat was created through absorption, rejection and adoption prevailed and Bharath was the landmass where this common core culture triumphed. Of course in order to create the common core culture after adopting certain aspects of Buddhism, the unwanted conceptual baggage or rather the "unconcepts" anicca, dukka and especially anatta had to be discarded with Buddhism itself. Later on even certain cultural aspects of Muslim culture were absorbed into Hindu culture as in the case of Uttar Bharatheeya Raghadari Music. In spite of the differences, by adopting, absorbing and discarding a common core Hindu culture was created in Bharath though people living in one part of the landmass had no contacts at all with those lived in another part. The problem the British faced was to replace this core culture by their western Christian modernity and the Judaic Christian culture.

(To be continued) - Sri Lanka Guardian