Indias Obsession With Decolonization Is A Lie Devdutt Pattanaik

TITLE: India’s Obsession With Decolonization Is a Lie | Devdutt Pattanaik EXPOSED the Debate CHANNEL: History Optional for UPSC DATE: 2026-05-01 ---TRANSCRIPT--- Is India still colonized mentally? So they would also amplify savages savages. So they had a story. Today’s politician has a story. You’re buying their story. I find it very hard to have the binary of English means colonization and disha means decolonization. I am a tribal person in Nagaland. Why should I learn Hindi? Should I learn Chinese? Maybe know everybody has to learn Chinese one day. Who knows? The drafters of policy thinks that art and culture is a tool through which they can help decolonize the mind of people.

Yes, the schools today have become like madrasas. We today every child in India knows no m significance. What should be the larger purpose of teaching art and culture? How to teach that? Is it even teachable? You see a statue of a naked man standing. Now you have been told it is the tanker. You could say an artist is trying to communicate a complex idea. Now when today in the national education policy we are promoting something called as IK Indian knowledge systems. Gandhi had a problem with those images because British colonizers were embarrassed. embarrassed for that because most of them are celibate men. We believe that if you don’t have sex, you become holy. It is the laziest form of holiness. So, and please you can’t say this in the exam paper. I’m sorry. You need to be very blunt. I have given civil services exam. Hello and welcome to the next episode of Akan Diaries. This is going to be fifth in our series of podcasts. Today we have with us Dev Patager and I will take little bit of time to introduce him to you even though he doesn’t require any introduction. The first time I came across him was Ar Satra Atraasal Pale when I saw one small video on TED talk given by him and I was mesmerized by that video. He talked about eastern versus western civilization. The Alexander and gymnos sophist river multiple times. Remember the tone of that dialogue and I was very mesmerized and in that video he introduced himself as I am a mythologist and I had not heard that term before. I seen historians, I seen archivist, archaeologist, endologist, orientalist everything but I had not heard the term mythologist. So I just Google what does it mean and in my mother Marati or in Hindi it says panic. So in a way he is a puranic puran that that that we have seen puranics in our lifetime. In childhood you go to temples and that is a traditional is a modern puranic in that way and there are some things which are common and some which are different. Common to excellent storytelling skill is very important to become a good puranic and he is no doubt an excellent in storytelling. Quranic pawas also make their comments sometimes socially relevant to the audience so as to make the meaning of the mythology and that he also does but there are certain ways which I feel that he’s different from traditional Quranic but the first thing is that he writes in English primarily and that is very significant for many things his audience largely originally is urban English educated upper class elite of India and that is very interesting because all of us raised all of us were raised in school thinking that India when India gets rich India gets urbanized it gets more secular uh the the hold of tradition reduces on the mind of people the culture becomes relatively less relevant but career proves very well that it is not true at all rather it is this urbanized and educated English educated India that is his primary audience that’s I that’s what I’m guessing right now Soian ideical. The second thing that differentiates him from the uh traditional Quranic is that uh he keeps on reinventing himself greatly. If you know about his career uh he started I think 30 40 30 35 years ago and that was the era when most of you were not born. That was the era before social media before or code before MySpace which you might not even have heard. So he already started to do his mythology thing before that. So he has been through lots of changes and is still relevant. He’s still trying to tell something which we are interested in and that requires immense amount of efforts and creativity. So that is second thing that I want to uh point out. The third thing is most of you would be surprised to know he is very well steeply read in academic context also although it doesn’t come out in his writing very easily because he’s targeting the people and he doesn’t want to burden them. So that fine and golden balance of having academic context and yet writing popular that that is something everybody strives to achieve one day and he has done that from the very beginning and that is also his his his specialty and fourth thing is that he’s also trying to comment on present times through mythology. His mythology is not just copy paste of some some bhagat puran etc. He would take the stories but try to tell them as per what we need today. I was watching his uh YouTube channel also recently and he has made lot of videos on the crisis in West Asia from mythological viewpoint and the ideas of what is the temple of Jerusalem, Shia Sunni conflict. So the things which are relevant which are now we are interested in he’s bringing them on table. So all four these four things he I think is very special. So we would like to welcome him with a traditional way of giving a shawl and nariel. OKAY. THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH. Thank you for now coming to the topic of the day. Uh we want to discuss the theme of decolonization. That theme has become very important in last few years. Firstly on social media there is massive debate on every small issue and uh the battle lines are drawn very hardly. The present government is also interested in the debate of decolonization. The prime minister himself has spoken about it from the ramparts of the red. that we want to decolonize India, it has become the topic of public policy as well. In the budget speech also the term appears all the time and it is when I looked at the history of this public debate in India, it’s not that new also. In 2013 UPSC had asked the question in the essay paper it’s essay topic of 2013 UPSC he is Indian mind colonized is India following colonial mindset even today that was full essay of around 10 to 12 pages that we are supposed to write in 2013 so this debate is occurring but with time it is becoming more and more intense. So my my first question to you is that is India still colonized mentally. So um you know I’m going to give you an analogy. So you put ingredients and spices in it right? You put uh namak, you put haldi, you put chili to dal and as the keep ingredients you keep adding and adding and adding and adding and adding and at one time the last ingredient you added was potato and potato starts to melt over time and then somebody comes and tells you that please remove the potato because the real dish existed before the potato. So now everybody’s trying to remove the potato called colonization. So this this is an engineering mind which thinks that culture is a series of blocks and I’ll remove a block and the old block will come back. So it it shows a lack of intellectual rigor in people. They’re using a word which they don’t understand. It is like saying she colonized my house. So I want to get rid of everything that the bahu brought into this house. How will you do that? How will you remove your memories? So this is what the the assumption that there is a culture the globally they use the word decolonization not just in India. Yes it is used everywhere that there is a colonial period which came with a set of ideas which made you see the world in a particular way and I want to get rid of it. It is a theoretical argument which sounds very good which will win you elections which will win you debates but will never be successful. Okay, it’s a waste of time because what you can do is add new ingredients to dilute the negative effects of colonization and add new ingredients to amplify the positive effects of colonization. That’s all you can do. But you can’t decolonize. You can play down the impact of one thing and you can amplify the effect. But decolonization itself is the most foolish thing on earth but foolish things win votes. Okay. So and please you can’t say this in the exam paper. Yes. In the exam paper see I’m going to tell you two things. I’m going to tell you a particular which I believe is a correct way of looking at it. But there is an exam paper you have to write. In the exam paper you should say colonization was horrible was very bad and we have to decolonize ourselves because only then you’ll become an IS officer. If you tell the truth you will not. I’m sorry you need to be very blunt. I have given civil services exams. The question which I couldn’t answer was what is the difference between tradition and heritage? So the irony that today I’m talking on culture but uh I got through but I didn’t take it up but the thing is I realized when I was being interviewed is I have to give an answer that impresses the interviewer. M it doesn’t matter what the truth is and therefore if you want to win and you want to get through you have to give an answer that is considered politically appropriate and they feel you align with that their politics and their view. So while I help you understand what is colonization and decolonization, please understand when you’re going to the exam hall, you have to get rid of dvdat yourself and get into that and give them the answer that they want to hear because they are not coming from curiosity of understanding and improving their knowledge of they want to check whether you have understood what they feel is colonization. So let’s be very clear about it. So how would you approach the idea to decolonization? So whenever you’re talking about something you have to look at two things tools and tails these are the two words I will always use tools and tails. Tools are tangible things. So what are the tools? You have got a railway line coming in. You have got clock towers coming in. You have a judiciary system coming in. You have a bureaucratic system coming in. The concept of institution did not exist that I can join an institution and leave an institution. You had birth your life was determined by your birth. The moment you are born into a family, you know your future. I am a born in a shepherd family. I will be a shepherd. I will die a shepherd. I am born in a potter’s family. I will die a potter. Now you have got this concept of institution. You are a shepherd but you can go to an institution called a school redefine learn new things and join an institution called the bureaucracy and become a civil servant. So now you have something called joining an institution and moving from one institution to the other and social mobility is happening. This did not exist 200 years ago. So colonization created institutions instit. So the words to remember for colonization what did they bring to the table? Borders. Let me give you an example of it. 17. Have you heard of the treaty of Westfailia? Yes. Yeah. So for the first time in the whole world you had this concept of boundary. Kings had empires. Empires did not have a boundary. Mughal empire did not have a boundary. Anybody could cross it. A nomad could cross it. Now you have a boundary. So in order to cross the boundary, I need a visa or a permit. So nomadic people suddenly could not move. Tribal societies were divided. So this is what colonization brought to the table. They came to India and said please define the borders of India. People said what the mountains and the rivers. No you need a border institution. Without a border you cannot have measurement. So border measurement these two things are what are brought by colonization. But then there is a story being told a tale is being told because when I start taking over the administration of the country I have to justify my presence there. So currently the politician will say Hindu mayhe So now I’ve justified my position saying that we are in Hinduism is in danger. I will say they said we will bring civilization to you. You are univilized. So they had a story. Today’s politician has a story. So they had a story. Now you don’t agree with that story. You say that story is wrong. This story is correct. 100 years later somebody will write argue about this story. So stories every ruler comes with a story. So when somebody says I want to decolonize they’re not talking about the tools they’re talking about the tales. Okay so it’s partial the tale part they are saying they told us that we were savages we are not savages. We’ll prove we were not savages but you’re buying their story. You’re buying their story. But you ask the person he said no it is real it is real I’ll give you proof same way they will give you proof that you know Indians were savages they used to so they had a propaganda look they burning women and they had data. So they would also amplify they savages savages savages because they have to take permission from their parliament to do things in India. They couldn’t they didn’t have a free hand especially after 1857 when the queen got involved. So now you they have an IT cell. Their IT cell is telling stories. RIT tells us so your system doesn’t you have to understand it in a very systematic way if you want to control a country if tomorrow I made you you went to another country how will you control that country you have to justify your presence so your story is based on because you are telling you’re an outsider. So then the story so colonization comes with this belief of justifying that imperial power the tail part of it. The tools we all like they’re modern tools they’re modern tools what we call modern tools. So decolonization is uh I mean will you give up uh the court system because the courts did not exist before everybody is equal before the law. This con concept did not exist before colonization. Are you willing to give it up? Railways did not exist before them. So they they brought the railways to plunder the country. But railways came and India has the largest network of railways and we are connected across the country through railways. They created a new system through the army. They created a system called the parliament. They created the system called uh the judiciary. They created marketplaces. They brought the stock market. They brought modern banking practices. All these have the printing press became widespread in this period. All this is part of colonization. So the tools and then the tails. Now the tail part yes we can challenge question argue lots of things are there like any system it has problems and we have to identify those problems and say okay these are the things that we need to clean. This is how colonization you have to step out of the box and ask foundational questions. So there one of the bricks in that wall of decolonization is English education. Yes. So we have all heard about Maui he has become a kind of a villain on social media nowadays for introducing English education and colonial education context. Uh in the 19th century India if you look at the reformers thought leaders starting from Rajaram Monroy to chipar everybody is saying key we have to learn English so that we become empowered. So English was seen as a as an empowerment tool for Indians by Indian leaders aralak but now the idea is that English is actually the tool of colonization and to some extent it has got some academic context as well like we have uh I think Gavishanatan’s book that colonial education was the mask of colonization which seems to be true at some level but today I’m asking this question specifically to you because you write in English and you write about tradition Yes. So I I find it very hard to have the binary of English means colonization and dishiasha means decolonization. So how exactly do you make sense of it? I am a tribal person in Nagaland. Mhm. Why should I learn Hindi? Is Hindi my matra bhasha? It is not. Isn’t it colonization? If I’m a Naga person, why should I learn Hindi? Should I learn Chinese? Maybe know everybody has to learn Chinese one day. Who knows? Colonization. Yeah. Now remember I use the word boundary definition. boundaries Hindi. I’m an odia. Why am I learning Hindi? We both speak in Marathi because I was raised in Maharashtra and I love Marati and I speak Marathi very fluently. I speak Maratti better than Odia. that I can’t give a speech in Odia. I can give a speech in Morati because I live in Bombay. But Hindi for me is alien. The only reason I’m doing it is because well it makes economic sense market. It’s market. I expand my market. I expand my political reach. So how is Hindi a non-colonial language and English a colonial language? It’s a point of view. It’s an argument but it is not a fact. You can argue the case beautifully. So an ar any lawyers can prove anything in the world. Huh? So lawyers see most of these things are made by lawyers. So the entire and the founding fathers of India if you look at the constitution of it is built by lawyers lawyer that is why we have so much justice in our society. Now when lawyers build a country they create justice is the belief. So this idea of language what was the court language of Ashoka it wasn’t Sanskrit it was a language which we believe is pra we don’t know he called it dhalipi we don’t know what what is it’s it’s something to do with mut that side of language but we really don’t know the language which what was it called then suddenly it became Sanskrit. So a new court language was created because the brahinss went around saying that we know how to govern country. They wrote the dharma shastr one of the most brilliant strategies to survive. So I call them statecraft consultants. They were statecraft consultants because the king would invite the brammen and say you establish my kingdom for me. And they were successful not just in India but they were also successful in Southeast Asia which is why Sanskrit cosmopolis is created from Afghanistan till Vietnam. Then around a thousand years ago a new polity emerges and you have Turkish warriors coming in Islam coming in the language is Farsy and a new court language emerges in North India not South India fars becomes the language. Farsy then manifests into the language of the barak which is called the udu not udu but udu then becomes udu. A new language emerges called udu and hindavi in the northern side. But again in north not below the deck. Then the British come and they say our language will be English. So court languages keep changing. Now India is controlled by Delhi. So Delhi is imposing its language on the rest of the nation. It is a north Indian city. It is not a south Indian city, west Indian city, east Indian city, northeast Indian city. It has chosen the language of convenience for itself because the maximum population is from the gangetic plane and in the process destroyed all the local dialects because the bundel khan dialect is different. Aadi is different, Maitelli is different, Bhjpuri is different, Marvadi is different, Mayadi is different. All the languages have been wiped out. Should we call it colonization? Because you wiped out those languages completely poetry. A tribal boy and girl goes to a school and learns Hindi does not learn poetry of his or her tribal community. Have you not colonized that tribe? Because in order to socially progress to join the school, they will learn Hindi. The curriculum is in Hindi. Then they’ll go and do is academy. They’ll have to learn Hindi. Even if they don’t learn English, they can rise up the ladder. Which language does Draadi Murmu speak? Tell me her language. We don’t know. Has she been colonized? Why can’t she speak her mother tongue? What food does she cook at home? What did her mother cook? Do we have a recipe book of Draadi Murmu’s family? Has she been colonized? But nobody asks this question. Somebody will 100 years later. But we ask about the British. Has the Indian Parliament ever said that today we will all eat what our president family used to eat? Why beware of storytellers? So uh taking for from that only one of the methods by which we want to help people understand these stories and look behind the curtain is education. Yes. And uh every now and then after every 15 20 years government brings out a new national education policy NEP. The recent one was brought in 2020 NEP 2020 and as per which the textbooks are being now rewritten uh to help students realize what is happening know what is in the world and improve the quality of education etc. Now uh so far I think I believe sixth, seventh and eighth standard books are rewritten and later books are in the pipeline and whenever textbook revisions happen they become extremely debatable that rightly or wrongly for any reason it is not presently for decades it is happening and it happens across the world also. Now uh my my main question here is that one of the elements of this national education policy is to teach art and culture. Yes. And what I believe that they think the drafters of policy thinks that art and culture is a tool through which they can help decolonize the mind of people. Yes. Is it really the tool for that? Is it possible? And secondly, if not, what should be the larger purpose of teaching art and culture? How to teach that? Is it even teachable? So, let’s uh go to the basics. This is the result of not colonization but a scientific mindset. So you have a computer, you download a software in it. When the software, then you start updating the software. When it has a glitch, you reboot the system and you get a new software. Now the world is controlled by lawyers on one side and engineers on the other. Engineers have a zero understanding of human beings. Apologies. So they think human beings are like machines or computers downloadiz. Tell me very clearly do they you look at education the schools today have become like madrasas what was the purpose of madrsa every child will be taught Islam we didn’t say the child will become a better human being or a smart person said such our understanding of such is the Quran the hadith the suras and these things mothers. So my friends who went to Madrasa said they by hearted everything and understood nothing. We could I he said I can I could recite the Quran end to end meaning sounds like the education system of today because the mothers was the basis of creating the modern education system where you have people the Sunday school the Christians had Sunday But that’s technical. The tool part, the tool part, the tail part is the problem. See, tools and tails are a very simple way to remember things. Tools are engineering creations to your STEM subjects. Tales are humanities. Politics, economics, anthropology, sociology, all storytelling. Sorry, but it is. Economists are storytellers. Politicians are storytellers. Political scientists are storytellers. Anthropologists are storytellers. They’re telling you ways of looking at the world. So now that education policy is trying to work on this. Now how is a tale communicated? Tale is communicated only in three ways. Stories, symbols, rituals which is art. So there’s literature, there is art. Art is of two types. Plastic art, performing arts. So I use a story. So constitution of India is a puran grant and puran pundit the constitutional experts. Then you have visual symbols. So you have the Indian flag, you have the chakra, you have the four lions visuals for performance. When the national anthem is played, we all have to stand up. Now if I ask you randomly, tell me the meaning of the national anthem. How many of you all know or are you obliged to know? You are obliged to memorize it and say it exactly like my friend could memorize and say the Quran without understanding its meaning. We today every child in India knows significance we call itricolor. How many colors are there on the flag? Why is itricolor logic? So this is when you start breaking it down. So the national education policy is coming from we want to brainwash our children. We will wash the old ideas and include our ideas. The next so Nehu had a particular view of the world. This government has a particular they said science is good. These people are saying no no no there is something better than science and we are going to give that. But if you ask clarity what are they talking about? Because is a decolonized India a country where cast exists? It can’t. But now it doesn’t matter to me because I have institutions which say that I can redefine myself. I can study in a particular college and I can go to a particular institution. I can take up a particular job and I can become something else and completely wash out my identity until marriage comes into the picture then marriage will decide a lot of because marriage is through marriage endogami is where it works. So that is how uh the things work. So this NEP policies when they’re coming they are believing that I can brainwash the next generation to think the way a group of men and remember our policies were being our our textbooks were being written by a French man a French man was the head of a group to decolonize India I think people don’t know his name Michelle Danino was the head of the chair but he’s a French man so So logical, complete logic. But that again my main theme was that the larger role of art and culture in education. Yes. So what is the purpose of art and culture? What is the difference between a living organism and a non-living object? First question to ask Jeie or s aieve or sajie a sajjie just so if you look at a plant what is the difference between a plant and a rock? What do you think? So don’t answer it because it’s a podcast but think about it only two things. Plant seeks food and plants seeks security. How do you know plant seeks food? Because it has green leaves for chlorophyll and it has roots to collect water. Now this it needs food. In humanities this is called economics. Society needs food. You need food. So economics deals with exactly what the plant needs. The plant needs to be protected from herbivorous animals. It doesn’t want to be eaten. So it protects itself. It has thorns. So it needs security. It needs to be it needs to defend itself. So it needs power. So now you have politics. So economics, politics, all animals, all plants have food and they need wealth and power. Human beings are the third are special. We have imagination. Plants and animals do not have imagination. So plants and animals only think about food and power till they survive. But because we have imagination, we seek meaning. Why do I live? What is the purpose of my life? This question only humans ask. Therefore, we tell stories. So, tools are not enough. We need tales. This is the origin of tales. So now when you’re raising your child, you don’t just give your child food and protection and tell them to produce food and give protection. You also give them tales. You tell them stories because the main question they’ll ask you is what happens after death. Why am more questions? Why am I a boy and why is my sister a girl? Plants don’t ask this question. Animals don’t ask this question. So now why am I fair and why are they dark? Why am I rich and why are they poor? Now you’re seeking meaning, explanations. Now what answer do you have other than stories? How do you communicate stories to people? You have stories, you have literature and you have art. They are communicating to you the world view of the ancestors. So when you see a giant statue of a man standing naked with his hands on the side, what are they communicating? Now let me explain this to you just using one statue. You see a statue of a naked man standing. Now you have been told it is the tirankara. But if you didn’t know anything, absolutely nothing and you saw the statue, you could say. First question to ask, why have they not created naked women? We’ll say no no women it’s not correct. No, that’s not the reason. An artist is trying to communicate a complex idea and he knows something about the female and the male anatomy and he knows that when the fe both men and women can get sexually aroused. But when I look at a naked male and a naked female and see sexual arousal, female body which is obvious to the naked eye. But when I see a male body, I can see a dramatic transformation. So now when I show a naked man who has a flaccid penis, I’m communicating and he’s looking at you. He’s like The one who can control his mind. I am an artist. I’m showing you a man who has given up everything in the world. So he is not aroused or excited by the world. He doesn’t desire the world. I have shown him with a flaccid penis. But he is not looking thin. He’s a handsome man. His body is muscular and aesthetically very attractive. That means he comes from a privileged background. He has given up his privilege and he’s not in he’s not interested in the world. So without saying it, the art has communicated a concept. Then somebody says I don’t agree with this. I will create a new idea. So look at the early images of Shiva in the Koshana period or if you want to do just do Gajant Taka Google search of in Khalinger I think Kalinger fort near Ilhabad I think so and there is a of a Gajantaka statues and there is Shiva dancing now we don’t know we are calling it Shiva we don’t know what the people who made it called it but now look at the difference between the Tatankara statue and this statue is standing straight Shiva is dancing. So see the delta and Shiva has an erect penis. What are they trying to communicate? But they will say but his eyes are shut. So they are saying that he’s dancing but must it’s called malang he’s in his inner world he is dancing his arousal is not based on external things it is based on internal realization of some knowledge it’s called anund to Explain when the government, the new government came, can you tell me what are the artistic changes they did in Delhi? Have you seen the lion statues across now? Lion statues and then they changed the parliament. So you change the path. So you have used architecture to prove your power. So Rabi architecture is talking to you. So that architecture has been replaced by a new architecture. So suddenly architecture becomes a political statement. Art becomes a political statement. What is the difference between Ashoka’s four lions and the four lions which were in Delhi right now which has been built after 2014? Can anyone point out are lions Indian animals or foreign animals? If you’re a nationalist, you will see it as Indian. Lions like dry savana land. India does not have dry savala lands. The only place it could have survived is in the Gujarat, Rajasthan, Araali region if at all. So like Michelle Danny know we need foreign things to justify our Indianness like potato. So tools and tales. So tales are communicated through tools which is art, architecture, literature, performing arts, plastic arts. We don’t know how to read them. So to read that art we need to know the context and story behind it. Yes. Now but there is one issue here. For example let us stay ODC dance itself. Now ODC dance is a is supposedly an ancient dance but people don’t know about it but we call it classical art. Yes. But it is also recently rebuilt in last two three generations. Yes. So while we teaching art we don’t go into the component of time that it is not all time immemorial things are evolving with time. Yes. But those stories get lost. Yes. But does not but what I always felt that art is important because it is time immemorial because it is very old but it is not very nothing. No see this idea of words like classical. These words are created they are political in nature. Nothing in human history is immemorial. What is immemorial is hunger is immemorial. Fear is there and curiosity. These three things are time are immemorial. But art emerges over time. For example, let us ask the government of India decolonization. Do they have a chapter on cortisans of India? Each and every dance form in India was created by cortisans. All the music systems that we have are created by cortisans. They have been erased from history. Sanitized sanitized because how can women do things? And these women were not obliged to marry. They had could have lovers. They had children and all the property would go to the daughters not to the sons. In fact in Tamil Nadu there is a proverb to the the translation of the proverb. The greatest tragedy for a taw would be if a boy is born because so this was a culture across India for how many years? Half the Buddhist monasteries were funded by these women. So it is at least 2 and a half thousand years old. Is it part of your history textbooks? How many years have we have independence? Why is it not part of our curriculum? Because Indians wiped them out. Not British. Indians wiped them out. Baratnatium was a daadasi sad dance. It has been taken by the Brahmin establishment and sanitized. All the dances were erotic in nature. You read the poetries is good. culture is item number and therefore successful performance item number every political event they are providing a service for which they being paid. The billionaires of a country also dance. So it’s language and culture changes over time. I have one thing to add here. Sure. The term Sanskriti is itself is a new word. This word did not exist 200 years. When the culture word came to India during the colonial time, Indians are looking for the translation of the word. In Bengal they formed a word called Krishi as an alternative to culture and Christi word did not stick and Tagore himself was very unhappy. He was looking for a new word and he had some letter exchange with Pune in in Pune with somebody and in Pune there was other person who was called Rajadi. Rajadi had coined a term called Sanskriti that there it’s something that comes from Sanskar is Sanskriti and then that word was preferred by Tagore and he made it important or popular. So there is the art emerges from a ecosystem of politics, economics, communication, meaning. So we have to understand. So classical these are new words which were created. This has always been there. No, they’ve never always been there. South India did not have Brahmans 2,000 years ago. There were no Brahmans. So did the Brahman Brahmans colonize South India only sat can’t say these things only British can colonize. Nobody else can colonize but everybody colonizes. India did not invade a foreign other countries. What about Sri Lanka? Have you heard of the destruction of Aniraa by the Chas? Can it be considered a foreign invasion? The borders is a very powerful word border measurement. So these key words are very important. So like in Bharatan only we have this very famous debate between Dvi on one hand who is trying to make it palatable to middle class uh in the Victorian kind of context and on the other hand we have Balasaraswati who comes from the tradition of Dodasi and she says no I will not let go of our kind of varatam. Yes. So that debate has occurred amongst Indians also. No, it’s a it’s you have stolen someone’s tradition. Look stole. Let’s not call it anything else. The British plundered India and Brookman Arundil plundered the heritage of the cortisans. Again I want to probe it a little further that we see how British era may culture got transformed to some extent. some good, some bad but it got transformed uh including some things that were not very desirable the Victorian morality kind of thing. Now when today in the national education policy we are promoting something called as Iks Indian knowledge systems which includes the study of philosophy, spirituality, religion also and as well as languages and ancient sciences could be chemistry, physics all those things we want to study and it is being heavily promoted uh in so much as that there is a department of IK promotion in the ministry of education today. Yes. and they wanted to introduce it into not only history syllabus. Apart from history syllabus if you go to the textbook of physics and chemistry and biology that also has inter so what I was feeling when I went through the books is that in a way it is good that we know about these things students did not know a lot of things earlier so in a way it is helping the cultural education some context creation but it is going back to the British kind of narrative about the essential timeless cultural that is not the Indian idea See uh Indian thought has satyug kaliug so things about change so timeless as an idea doesn’t exist so when people use the word sanatal I keep saying but so that itself is a contradiction because the chhatury system says that things rise and fall rise and fall things change over time but sanatan is saying things don’t change over time so that itself is a flawed definition let me tell you something interesting about this department of IKE please look at the logo if you have a phone right now just go to Indian knowledge system and try to see the logo of it there is a bird there now tell me is swan an Indian animal zoology students any zoology student uh swan is not an Indian animal goose Goose is an Indian animal. Goose Indian knowledge system art and culture failures because they art and culture failure Indian knowledge system European bird that’s a European bird. It’s a swan is a European bird. when the if you see because they saw the European painters India H is a barheaded goose which flies from central Asia to India after the rainy season but result of not studying art and culture First of all, science be failure. At least science may you would have studied natural history of India that this is not an Indian animal they look like goose goose but goose doesn’t look elegant swan it’s a goose not duck but goose so this is the tragedy of it of course exam This is India. But now you look at the curriculum and I sent you an image of the curriculum. Everything is called a science. Narrative science, medical science. I think I have got the I have everything is science because this deep science envy. Let me give you a sample of the topics that they have. Huh? Philosophy and cognitive science, civilizational science, economic and strategic science, social and cultural science, medical and health science, mathematical, physical and astronomical science, culinary, nutritional, pharmarmacological science, everything is science. Vanta is science is science science true but that is we don’t we embarrassed by that right because British colonizers were embarrassed embarrassed Women are standing in absolute confidence showing their body. Gandhi had a problem with those images. Women have to be covered. How can women be erotic? What’s wrong? Because we are embarrassed because most of them are celibate men. We believe that if you don’t have sex, you become holy. It is the laziest form of holiness. Holy. I’m like what logic is this? So we need IS but in a different form. We have to understand what we mean by it is not it is writer is coming from chauvinism. It is not coming from curiosity. It is coming defensiveness not from Jigyasa. And why all the sciences are in Sanskrit? But all the intelligent people knowing Sanskrit. This is Brahminism at work orientalism. Orientalism because orientalism because they love. So you are not telling me none of them talks about Tamil traditions, semiotics, linguistics 13th century by by Turks by Turks. Which part of India? North India. Bhjra is which part of a plant? It’s a B. So now you have now in order to you write on bark, what material do you need? Something sharp. bark will tear. So paint. So now you see the siddhham script it is written in a calligraphy style styus engrave. So Ganeshar if it is sharp object. Huh? Huh? But what what take what what was the logically? South only sir. South. Yes sir. How by the way you tell me which century was the story first first time the story appears in Indian mythology. Early purans don’t even mention Ganesha. Ganesha. I recently visited Udiri caves also. There is the Ganesha Morti perhaps one of the oldest morties. But it is two armed or fore armed I don’t recall now exactly two armed or fore armed two armed forearm two armed or fore armed always check that there is a fore armed ganesha also but in one corner not the one which you saw the one which you saw most which most people is two armed. Okay. So we don’t know what it is. We not sure. It can be probably but four armed Ganesha is Ganesha but that is around sixth century sixth century. But two armed Ganesha has been found before that. So two armed and forearmmed is a very important difference statues earliest Lakshmi image in India is found roughly where and when I think stupas on the stupas gaja lakshmi gaja lakshmi is shown but only two armed not forearmmed Maybe pushan coins possibly I’m not sure 10th century is a very late phenomena it’s a very very late because Lakshmi was originally shown at the feet of Vishnu And if she’s sitting at the feet of Vishnu, she can’t have four hands. The two arms for earliest it’s two armed again. But there is I I have always faced this problem in our syllabus also in UPSC syllabus in NCTities when we study the iconography and sculptures etc. generally we talk only of Buddha. Yes that is the Gandhar Buddha and Matra Buddha Amraati Buddha we do not refer to Hindu deities. Yes I don’t know what is the No this is the reason why this Hindu Khat emerged because the historians were spellbound by the Buddha. And the problem with Hinduism is it is very complicated. So confidently there’s so much of ifs and buts and emergence of ideas. So few scholars have worked on Hindu iconography. They have it’s not that it is not there. But Buddha is easy done. Tick mark. But even in Buddha they only talk of the old Buddhist art. They never talk of tantric buddhas. Yes. when you tell okay let me ask a history question how many Buddhas are mentioned in the Ashoka one is no historic Buddha uh other is Kanakamuni Buddha from again how do you know Buddha is historic how do you know Buddha is historic I can write Anything? No. I fought with crocodiles. I built a robo when I was a child. Tales. Be careful of tales. How do you know Buddha is historical? This was the reason why historians in it was a orientalist creation. We do not know whether Buddha was historical. We do not know if Jesus is historical. We do not know if Muhammad is historical. The evidence is very flimsy. For the believer, it is real. But there is no evidence. All stories of Muhammad come 100 years after by the established by the Umayad Empire the stories emerged. So we do not have any histo Muhammad means in praise of God. It’s a title. So we really really I mean historical precision say the historical say probably probably they can surely Jesus Christ probably there is a very strong evidence of a person virgin birth is historical no Buddha’s story comes 700 years after this event dating is based on what Ashoka 100 years 200 years before I was coronated. So we don’t this assumption of the historical Buddha is an assumption is an argument. It’s not a fact. But we have been this is the reason why historians lost credibility in our country. This privileging of Buddhism over Hinduism that is also a colonial legacy in a way colonial legacy. But they could have corrected it. You have 70 years to correct it. You did not correct it. You did not correct it and you did not. So that’s why look at the question you’re asking me that when I’m describing iconography how come I know so much about Gandhara Buddha and Matura Buddha and I don’t know about Gokuram’s history I talked about Ganesh I spoke about the story of Ganesha the iconography Morty say when are the earliest Hindu images clearly being shown when were the you know so We start reading history differently. Shankrara was he historical? Don’t know. Now we’ll get all nervous. But Shankrara all information comes 700 years after he died. Shankar Digijay. Shankar Digijay was written when 14th century. What is special about 14th century? Maduray Sultanat was established and destroyed. After Maduray Sultanat is destroyed only after that Shankara Digaya is written. So what does it tell you? something Hindu and you create a character who travels around India doing big vijayam conquest of the directions it’s called cultural production you produce a document to reclaim your country which you feel is under threat. So Shankara Digaya is amongst the earliest documentation of Indians trying to reclaim their culture through an idea. For the first time you have got a character who travels from Kerala to the Narada river basin, Omareshwar Mahishmati then goes to Kashi then goes to Badrinat and then goes to Kashmir and establishes his matas in Duara, Puri, Badrina, Shingeri, Ki geographical 14th century 14th century after the Taimur invasions have happened after the Maduray So now history is shaping culture. So Shankaraya is a cultural product that helps me understand politics because so in a way when Vijayagar is getting established they are creating their narrative. So Vijayagar is employing these people the Vijayams are written by the matas which are established in Vijayagar Empire. So when you read the bacti literature of north India which emerges only in the 17th century bi mahatma and all that 17th and 18th nabadas and all that is writing they’re saying sub south from the south comes narama from the south comes shankrara because they realize that when the northern areas are being where did all the knowledge go it went to the south now from the south it is coming to the north so all those ideas are coming from south to north they’re coming so north to south how do you know the migration happened. You have stories of Persam. You have stories of Augusti. South to north. How do you know? You have the stories of Rammanuja. You have stories of Rammanand. So Shankrara. So India is moving north and south. So see how cultural products are helping us understand history. So there is knowledge in India. This decolonization has its place. But we have sort of not what is being done. They’re not understanding. I mean these are good words to have. Decolonization is a word which I feel is silly. That is the most silly word for me personally. I feel is very childish. It is like saying I want to get rid of my father and mother. Your you cannot change your you don’t want to talk about the fact that you know arians because you said outsiders are Muslims are outsiders, British are outsiders. The moment somebody says Arians are outsiders now you’re like no no no no no they can’t be outsiders. So Harpa is Vic. So you’re coming from ideology and politics you’re not coming from Jigyasa curiosities. That’s a major issue in the recent book also of sixth standard that that we’re talking yesterday only that they have used industrial civilization, Sindu civilization and civilization interchangeably and it is explicitly mentioned that these three terms are all okay. You can just use any term you want so much so that even UPSC asked a question in history paper two three years ago where they have taken the word Hindu Saraspati civilization as granted. So these things are there but again uh coming back to little bit different topic here. You have in your past and I think presently also interacted so much with corporate world. You have I I remember some same same TED talk you talked about Kashor Byani and Future Group and Faloons. Uh over time you also worked with Reliance as cultural consultant. So you have dealt with the corporate world of Mumbai very well. Now this is the world that they inhabit which is of the officers bureaucracy babus is so these two are different worlds in in one world you have managers in other world you have administrators in one world you have CEOs and CFOs in the other world you in this world you have IM labas there are different things the different values so my question to you is you have for many many years experimented success uccessfully about how to use mythology uh to reorient the belief and values in the corporate world. Have you had any brush off with the bureaucracy in the past and do you think they also need some cultural education? The bureaucracy and the corporate world function differently in a different way. The corporate world is focused on generating wealth. A bureaucracy theoretically exists to distribute wealth. That’s the difference. One generates wealth but wants to be monopolistic which is what is happening right now. The purpose of the bureaucracy is to ensure monopoly doesn’t happen and the wealth is fairly distributed and used for the larger good and think strategically of the future which a corporate is not interested in. Corporate is very focused in its ambition. A bureaucracy has to have perspective. So there’s a difference between their structure and they both need to coexist. Uh some of these people next year will be in DASA. I have interacted with so many officers over the time. Uh what I have found is that at least the process of getting into services the UPS examination is not adequately designed to make them culturally sensitive and now once they go into service there are very less chances of them upgrading on that front and that has impact on entire state and its machinery. So what can be done to make them more develop better cultural aptitude so to say? I think the easiest way is to look at your own house and ask yourself in your own house what is the culture in your house? Simple question. What is the politics in your house? What is the economics in your house? And what is the culture in your house? Three things. Lakshmi, have you inherited that wealth or is somebody getting the money? How is the money being distributed, utilized? And how is it being how is the expense? What is the savings? So that’s the economics of the house, politics of the house, who takes the decisions in your house. Does the father take? Does the mother take is a collective decision? Is it a joint family? What is the process of taking decisions? Who takes what decision? Is there distribution of power in the house? That’s how you learn politics. Third, cultural productions. What do you cook in your house? How is your house designed? What is the architecture of your house? Toilet. Who does the leisure? Who does the labor? music. These are cultural things. No, these are cultural things. What clothes are you wearing? How do you understand culture? Culture is roti, capra, makan. So roti, what kind of food do you eat? Capra, how is your house designed? What is the kind of furniture that you buy? Transport, what kind of transport do you have? How do you give what festivals do you celebrate? Then you compare your house with your neighbor’s house and have a discussion. You all have you have about 100 people over here. Sit down and ask the different cultures in your house. What is the art and culture in your house? Which morty is being kept? Why is a particular morty being kept? What does it communicate? Where is the morty being kept? Just look at the door of the house. The door may you will say how does a Muslim house look? How’s a Hindu house look? The Christian house look people are sitting and doing the cooking. You sit down and eat. Now you sit on a dining table, your culture has changed. Now you have to decolonize yourself. Parliament because chair is a colonial invention. True tools and tales tools and tales. So culture is there in your house. It’s just that we have never looked at them as culture. We should not dissociate it from the We have not taught even physics and chemistry in our houses, chemistry. Right. We teach chemistry to students but they don’t know the chemical composition of things in their house. instrumental for thank you very much for this exhilarating and insightful discussion. So thank you very much everybody and also