CHANGING THE PRISM

THE BUSINESS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS COLONIAL CONTROL OVER INDIA LATER HAD A VERY CLEAR OBJECTIVE: THE COLONIAL RULERS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS WOULD NOT BE SATISFIED WITH JUST THE PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC COLONISATION OF INDIA BUT OF THE INDIAN MIND AS WELL

- HEERAMAN TIWARI, ANU KHANNA

"Shakespeare is the greatest hero and ambassador the English language has ever known. He is our single biggest cultural contribution to the world, our riposte to Beethoven and Michelangelo, and a pretty effective response he is, too. He is our greatest quarry of words and characters and predicaments...He is our Homer." This is how Boris Johnson, the writer and the former Prime Minister of UK celebrates in the Johnson's Life of London (2011) of that country's icons. Do we read any writer of modern-day India, any politician who celebrates Indian heritage with this passion? Perhaps, not. On the contrary, when a writer or a politician quotes from Willaim Shakespeare or Niccolo Machiavelli to feed their conversation in an Indian context, we stand up and listen to them in admiration for their formidable knowledge. How, then, does a nation ravaged by invaders, colonised for centuries, shed the mindset of its native intellectual inadequacy engrained in it for so long that it has become almost genetic? A multipronged approach is required to shed this parasitic colonial attitude in the nation. How do we go about it; where do we start. We've already lost 75 years actively erasing our civilisational values, our ancient traditions, knowledge systems, languages, and so forth. The first thing that comes to mind is a complete overhaul of the education system, starting at the primary level.