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JSD's new book "India That is Bharat: Coloniality Continuity, Constitution" is turning out to be a major ideological flashpoint. Professor Priyamvada Gopal from Cambridge and Professor Dibyesh Anand have tweeted the back cover of the book and slammed those professors who have endorsed it, especially Professor Walter Mignolo from Duke. According to Gopal, JSD is trying to replace Macaulayism with Brahmanism. Gopal has also pointed out that all the endorsers of the book are men.
https://twitter.com/PriyamvadaGopal/status/1431169841621315588
https://twitter.com/dibyeshanand/status/1431169087023947776
I must express my solidarity with Professor Gopal and Professor Anand. I don't have an issue with the lack of female or queer endorsers, or with the conservatism of Professor Mignolo, but with the central argument that JSD makes, which can be seen in the page below (tweeted by JSD himself, so no copyright issue):
Obviously, the central flaw in this argument is the assumption that there is such a thing as "Bharat" and "Indic" civilisation. It is nothing but a carbon copy of the argument that Veer Savarkar makes in his writings. Also, a constitution is a document that lays out rights of the citizen and the federal governance structure. It has little to do with civilisation and history and more to do with governance and socio-economic development. In other words, it is unnecessary to drag in the constitution in a debate on "native" versus "colonial" values, both of which are contested terms in the first place. The other issue is that of "Bharat" having "agency" to define itself? Who says it does not? Who is denying "Bharat" this agency?
Most of all, I strongly object to the campaign to include this book in the UGC/BCI syllabus. For a law syllabus, one must stick to books like DD Basu, Shukla, MP Jain etc for an understanding of the Constitution. It is irrelevant and unnecessary to drag this book into the syllabus. Also, JSD has no academic credentials.
It will be most unfortunate if any NLUs adopt this book in their syllabus.
I have given my views respectfully and hope responses will also be in polite language.
Because of his political affiliation? Cmon
~ R
Answer by Sanjay B Quote:
> Quote:
THIS is the exact problem I have with the "authors" of this age, writing their opinions like facts without any references or citations. The logical jumps and inconsistencies in most of these books are too damn high
1. Arun Shourie
2. David Frawley
3. Sankrant Sanu
4. S.L. Bhyrappa
To name a few.
Periyar = charlatan and demagogue
MN Roy = communist
I know who to read and who to ignore.
2. Structures which permit the state to interfere in traditions solely on the basis of western concepts which are alien to Indic cultures......
3. Structures which fail to stop the juggernaut of predatory proselytization and conversion rackets.....
4. Structures that have failed to stop the plunder of historical knowledge and artifacts belong to the Indics....
I could go on and on, but neither do we need validation from you, nor would your hatred for Indic agency and love for western civilisation go away.
2. There is no harm in using the values given by Western world if those values are humanising and results in better human experience. Argument of being alien to Indic way is not a solid argument.
3. Structures giving right to profess every religion including your own religion can't be taken away in garb of "forced conversions".
4. Plunder of Indian artifacts doesn't seems to have connection with Constitution.
If by love of Western civilization, if you mean love of liberty equality and fraternity is bad, then you must tell me what are the Indic alternatives of them (assuming we even need them)?
can Hindus establish their education boards like muslim & Christan , under gurukul can a temple deside where it's money should be spent? Like other institutions of other community...aka masid (zakat)
why RTE apply apply only to hindu controlled institutions?
stollen jewellery & artifacts under govt control temple is no joke...
It is very much necessary to scrutinize the Indian constitution because in the aftermath of the final accepted version of this constitution, there is documented proof that Dr.Ambedkar was aghast at the final product and even dismissive of it in certain ways because the intentions he had at drafting it were completely lost in the process. So it reeks of colonial impositions that have no business existing in a document that represents the Dharmic land.
Bharat has always been the most accommodating and any unity that was necessary came about through the padayatra of Bhagavatpada Shankaracharya in the 7th century itself. The unity that was established was never at the behest of other existing traditions but also encompassed, in a philosophical sense, any future system that may arise at any point of time. Secularity promised way back when other civilizations were fighting over nonsense.
We now live at the peak of dualistic hatred, and a major section of the society is fighting for their rights, and shouting for inclusivity, and if the current generation aren't astute enough to recognize that the liberalness we speak of has existed since time immemorial, then it only shows how dishonest their lives are. Colonial literature always dismisses this greatness and tries to hide such literature because they want to claim whatever good India has had is because of invasion and the constitution, which is outright laughable.
Keeping aside micro problems for a moment, people have to acknowledge that(at least intellectually) there is a philosophical system that proclaims that 'YOU' are necessarily God, and that there is no distinction among us all. Also specifically says how everybody is eligible and can attain liberation right in this life. No other philosophy says this as far I'm aware. Not many are even aware that such a system, native to India exists! This is exactly why an Indic Renaissance is very much necessary and the ginormous number of books that are related to Dharma should be brought out, which is what the foreign scholars so to say as scared of. Scared that the real literature and history and philosophy comes out in public domain.
It's not dishonest living, good sir, it's just a conscious reflection. A nation where we are afraid to go out with our partner/SO because some wannabe leader's sentiments would be hurt and they'll (a) call your parents (b) have the girl tie you a rakhi (c) call the cops (d) beat you up or (e) all of the above.
A nation where national leaders say our culture doesn't support women education and they should stay at home. National leaders.
And then your lot acts surprised as to why we don't want your "culture". Because it's oppressive. Stop trying to impose it on the premise that it was oh-so-glorious in the past and oh-so-liberal - it might have been, but it's not anymore.
Quote: Okay now that's batshit hilarious. Do you imagine there to be a "deep state" equivalent lobby of foreign scholars who are scared and actively trying to keep away Indian literature? Really? Scared? Why would that be?
The major section of society that I previously mentioned was particularly referring to the LGBTQ+ community, which is something that has evolved over time, and it is here where the openness of Sanatana Dharma comes in. The fact that you can't appreciate a philosophy even when its made clear, that the Self or YOU are non-different from the ultimate truth can only point to intentional ignorance.
Practical problems that you mention are consequences of dynasties, governments and people misinterpreting the Dharma and trying to impose their version of it. Despite the plethora of problems that Bharata had, there was always some sort of coherence in this land.
History shows the kind of nonsense other civilizations were dealing with, but we were above the rest only because of this all encompassing view of Dharma; We are all essentially the same non-dual truth. The kind of literature that flourished in 2-7th century in India is a testament to our broadminded roots, and those principles necessarily can be utilized for improving life right now.
With this in mind I'd say, the current government also is to be blamed for this because they don't embrace intellectuals in their narrative. But problems like caste based discrimination do not exist on the philosophical front at all, and as Dr.Ambedkar rightfully points out in almost all of his books, the problem of discrimination when it started also has to be necessarily attributed to certain powerful individuals in history, which became fodder for invaders, and especially for the British.
And what you term as conscious reflection again cannot fully explain the fact that even our elders haven't been proactive in supporting the Renaissance so whatever constitution they grew up with has to be necessarily looked at as a product of colonial imposition with communist leanings that by default neglected the Indic culture. Dr.Ambedkar affirms this in his books.
The feeling that the culture is inappropriate is itself a consequence of not reading works of Indic authors, and one thing that all invaders did proactively was to destroy and annihilate such works as much as possible, and this continued with the previous government as well. Now, some interested folks like JSD are trying to remedy this by providing insights based on proper research on those works.
This need to destroy and push others into a belief system using the fear of sin is ingrained in other religions, whereas Dharmic philosophies which include Buddhisim, Jainism, Vedanta have a fundamental trait that "belief/faith" is not necessary at all, and left to personal discretion, and so even Atheism can be included in this, and it is not seen as a sin. Other Nastika schools like Charvaka, Ajivika surviving in harmony in this land is mentioned in history.
Tarnishing our culture is now happening by again purposefully misinterpreting ancient scriptures and literature again with this lens of colonial lens. Very few foreign scholars actually present neutral works, and maybe even some Indian scholars too follow this approach. The recent conference on Sept 11 was proof of their veiled intentions.
They are in a hurry to publicly present contorted meanings of what books exist and further spew hatred because we as Indians are slow to recognize our greatness. So yes, they are actively trying to spoil the Renaissance movement. They need not have to physically stop us, but just present nonsensical meanings and drill them into ignorant minds, and in the meantime their true intentions get fulfilled - conversion, which is a blinding reality in India today, rampant conversion is happening in Punjab, Andhra, Kerala and NEW states. It buys them time to do this. They are in it for the long run.
Choosing to remain oblivious is your choice based on half-baked opinions.
JSD attempts to correct this, and does it well.
Any knowledge I've gained about this civilization has always been through self-inquiry and not through family traditions. Having studied Sanskrit in school as a language helped, and interest developed to read more during college in the last 4-5 years, revealing a whole new domain that has been omitted and twisted for Indians in history books right from our school syllabus.
What we read is our choice, and nothing to do with religious indoctrination by our parents.
It took so much effort while in college to understand certain brahminical texts through mostly YouTube. And they're definitely beautiful, philosophical and extremely deep. I've never heard of or thought of things in the world that way. Especially the writings of Shankaracharya. I was extremely happy to make that a part of my life but I was furious to think why this knowledge was withheld from my caste and other castes for several generations. I could observe the stark differences between Brahminical families and other non-brahminical families and I their approach towards life. Brahmins have produced literature and ideas that are absolutely splendid but they are extremely guilty of spiritually starving the rest of the population.
The poster implied that they've had enough of the culture, but I made points to show how the root problem does not lie in the philosophical system, but in the practitioners of it. This includes the current government.
Which is why I mentioned in the first comment itself that at least intellectually one has to read and accept that this system fundamentally sees no difference from the Self and God, thereby making us all equal.
This is exactly the reason I liked Sai Deepak's approach in the book because he hasn't relied on any repeated and standard aspects others addres while writing, and instead focuses on citing credible sources from Indic authors to state his point, which I find commendable and has little to with the government.
Non-dual consciousness propogated by the Vedanta school of thought is the epitome of inclusiveness. There's no school that has the potential to have a definition which includes every individual, believer, non-believer, sexual mimoroty etc. Skeptics should check out Jerry Johnson's book "I am divine and so are you" which talks about queer identities accepted in dharmic faiths especially Vedantic school.
But I get the hatred towards Hinduism in general. We have a history of Brahminical oppression which I so fiercely detest myself. We are reduced to pagan worshippers to feed the wheel of Brahminical practices and propogation of their wealth. I really hope we move beyond being the victims of the petty practices of Brahminism ( which we've imbibed to be our "culture") and actually take up a spiritual and philosophical approach to religion.
So every proper researched attempt like this book by J Sai Deepak is necessary and quintessential because the quality of this book doesn't seem lacking in any sense as such. There are direct references to every Indic scholar, and I personally don't think JSD represents the right wing.
At some point every book from the Indic side also matters and acts as soft power, which is influential to the masses in the long run.
AYE HAYE 🤮🤮🤮🤮
He is shaking up the roots of our flawed thinking, and as I understand, it started to create ripples across the so called intelligentsia of India, and very rightly so.
Time indians decolononized themselves and stopped waiting for validation from the west.
Cheerio!
What "Western" or "colonial" values are there in our Constitution and our laws, and that have been thrust upon us, when there were better "dharmic" or "native" values that we could have used instead?
Is there a list of such values that will be accepted and applauded by women in Kottayam, Aizawl, Goa, and Kashmir?
This is not a trollish question. I'm genuinely interested in an alternate legal jurisprudence that will include and will protect the groups named above. Can someone list this out?
What JSD does in the book is based solely on regional/local scholarship about how India is much more than what is portrayed today, and that there is a 'Bharat' version to it that's been hidden from the masses.
There's no one book that addresses this mighty confusion. We've always had varied perspectives on a single topic, that's what makes us special and so multiple books might be needed to understand the Dharma and this civilization.
One need not look further than the works of Dr.Ambedkar, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore.
At least for an introduction.
For proper research-based factual analysis, check 'Who were the Shudras?' by Dr.BR where Aryan theory is dismissed and inquiry is made on how the civilization has to be understood.
Swami Vivekananda for general philosophical aspects and the right way to look at Dharma. This is important because everything changes with the way we define God, and how other religions interpret it. 'Lectures from Colombo to Almora' is a good intro.
The legendary Tagore for mystic writings and beautiful poetry. There are many collected books on him, but 'The philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore' covers a bit of everything, and even there he is critical of certain aspects of Vedanta, but recognizes that this freedom is fundamental to this land.
And of course the 'Geetanjali' for which he won the Nobel prize is an epitome of Dharmic nuances, because inspiration for his literature lay in Vedanta primarily.
I hope you will try to check these books out even though it doesn't directly address your concern. Most of these must be available on Archive.
The Constitution of India does not reflect the civilisation of India. This is going to be a problem cause in India the Constitution is the well from which you draw Sovereignty.
There are grammatical mistakes. The author uses ''Perhaps'' very often. This makes me feel like the author is uncertain about what they want to convey.
There are many arbitrary definitions, a narrative of ''Them vs Us'' (This is the language populists like to use), misuse of terms etc.. in the pages I read. Reading few pages felt like I was reading one of my high school essays on nationalism!
I took a quote from this book and put it out in Quora asking the forum to help me understand the sentence. You may follow the discussion here.
https://www.quora.com/This-sentence-is-killing-me-In-stark-contrast-to-the-benevolent-connotation-imputed-to-humanism-the-literature-reveals-as-we-shall-see-that-it-has-the-direct-effect-of-placing-humans-over-and-above-nature-What-does
To start with you said
"Also, a constitution is a document that lays out rights of the citizen and the federal governance structure. It has little to do with civilisation and history and more to do with governance and socio-economic development."
Well, if you are in the Legal profession I suggest you quit immediately. Because you haven't read the constitution even once or if you did you did not understand any bit of it. If you did you wouldn't start or base your arguments based on the above statement of yours.
If you want you can go to the constitutional draft committee and their assembly of arguments to understand what "Indic" & "Bharat" civilisational values went into the document.
Heck, the illustrations on the Draft copy of the original Constitution of India consist of important events of the civilisation of the land Bharat.
I think you are just a butt hurt liberal and cannot confront the truth congress has been hiding for ages.
1. You have failed to deal with the specifics. I urge you to go back, find points that you find problematic, and refute it with credible backing.
2. If you are claiming that the 'native' vs 'colonial' debate is unnecessary in spite of reading the book (which I doubt you even bothered reading), please do give an explanation for the same. The author has clearly defined his standpoint, elaborated the need to distinguish between native and colonial using scholarly sources. So it is childish to term it "unnecessary" and leave the room, it does grave injustice to the author's efforts.
3. Please don't call this a review, and definitely not a critical review, please, xD. It is just a 75 word Instagram comment section worthy 'opinion'.
It's time we called a spade a spade and called out the devious intention of the colonizers.
By the way, for your kind information, the word 'Bharat' exists in the holy Rigveda. Veer Savarkar did not invent the word; he just took it from the Vedas.
Sai has done a phenomenal job ▮▮▮
The constitution is based upon Indic values as can be seen in many directive principles like article 44. And the word secular and socialist were added forcefully during emergency.
Second, the constitutional emblem is not some Mughals insignia but the Insignia of Asoka who was a Hindu and later became a Buddhist, both religions are Indic in origin.
On top of that the word Satyameva Jayate , the only words that are written below the emblem are sanskrit words taken directly from Mundaka Upanishada of Atharva Veda, one of the four Vedas of Hinduism.
I'll try to be as mild and unoffending in my criticism as possible but won't guarantee that that's what it will look like. I have absolutely nothing against you.
First it impresses me how intellectually shallow and intelligibly weak your argument is.
If the case is that you don't understand the concepts of epistemology and its effect on the development of culture, religion, beliefs and worldviews on a society then you need to educate yourself about it first. Probably some other resource and not JSD's book as it's evident that you've understood nothing from it.
However if the case is that you outrightly deny the concept of civilization, culture and its effect on religion and society and their mutual interactions therein then I'll have to pen down a larger piece which I deem unnecessary as I'm quite certain that it is my former opinion which is the case here and not this latter one(however, I could be wrong).
That being said, every society - it's beliefs, worldviews, culture, language, religion and the resulting societal structure is borne out of the civilizational experience of that geography which is then dependant on the onto-epistemological understanding of the initial inhabitants of the place and btw, even philosophy is borne out of this onto-epistemological understanding. Surely there's a reason why in philosophy classes you learn the metaphysical background of the philosopher before you learn what he's talked about.
And surely, being the field of law(so goes the assumption) you'd know that all your law theories were given by philosophers and sociologists who had their respective metaphysical understanding of the world they had come from which in turn, determined their opinions about right and wrong, good and bad, holy and evil, sacred and cursed which led them to give the theories that they did and if law is not an enterprise of right and wrong then, what is it? Similarly, governance and it's structure - ever cared to ask where, how and why did these ideas arrive in the first place? You should.
Lastly, even if JSD reads this piece, I don't think he should degrade himself to such intellectually unsound pieces of argument. No insult, just simple fact.
And if there are doubts over Bharat being a civilisation, how do you explain the constitution adopting the phrase India that is Bharat
Clearly the makers of the constitution appreciated the civilisational continuity of this land
Today's Nehruvians harp that India was not a Nation before British came. They maybe should read what Nehru said in 1961 while addressing the AICC
Guy has studied law in IIT Kharagpur and you are saying he has no academic credentials?🤣🤣
A constitution is a book that metes out details on how to run the state, including the restrictions of the state. This cannot be done in vaccum of connections with society and hence people and hence the civilisation. These are certainly not reasonable criticisms of the book or the notions it propagates.
THe book gives another dimension of things which mr.Pedant could not co-relate earlier. Now that he has done. whats wrong in his book?
He has sighted many proofs,letters and has come with concepts of civilisation. Excellent work on all aspects. probably i read it in 1 go without any break.splendid.How do you say he is non constitutional. he has quoted article 1 of constitution. how can society be run without the predeccessed past?
Hope everyone is proud of our predecessors and they were from Bharat. Does it not feel pride in you that he has praised everybody's forefathers?
Does that insult you?
The so called central flaw proves Sai point which he pointed in books that western civilization and many from Indian sides refuse to accept that there is such a thing called Bhartiya or Indic civilization.This subversion of truth has been rightly called out by Sai .
Your denial about Bharat and Indic Civilization proves Sai point of people denying Bharat having Agency.
1. Your statement questioning the validity of the existence of "Bharat" and "Indic" civilisation does not hold water when history clearly says otherwise or maybe you are a subscriber to an alternate form of history.
2. Constitution has little to do with civilisation and history and more to do with governance and socio-economic development - Ok but when the history of a civilisation dictates what the "rights of the citizen and the federal governance structure" are and how do you reconcile with that fact? and how can you then exclude that history entirely?
3. Who is denying "Bharat" this agency? - This finally confirms my suspicion that may be you have not read the book and are making an argument of argument's sake with an ulterior motive, because if you had then you would know the answer to your question.
Also, there is no mention of "Brahmin"/"Brahminism" or even a distant hint at that term in the passage that you have posted here.
In conclusion you need to get a firmer grip with the history of this country and read more literature from authors outside your echo chamber.
And the crux of the opposition is the rebuttal of the agency called Bharat. This is just focusing on linguistic metaphor “Bharat” & ignoring the issue whether there exists a civilisational similarity & continuity across the Indian subcontinent - call it by any label - Bharat, Hindu, or Tamil, or the colonial moniker India (which itself is derived from Hindi).
The argument is very shallow. History informs us that the subcontinent was identified as Bharatvarsha both by internal agents & external agents. And it is this self-identification that JSD advocates us to revert in order to reconstruct our own self identity independent of alien impositions.
In short the opposition itself identifies with an idea of India defined by the western constructs & are opposing JSD z choice to define the idea based on indigenous constructs.
They usually don't have anything of substance to say.
In the book there are so many citations from different books and you just put out one page in which he is putting his thoughts, and on the basis of that you just gave a big rhetoric paragraph and you want people to believe that this is your critique.
How did u become a lawyer?