Colonial Syndrome

The Videshi Mindset in Modern India

K. Ramakrishna Rao

• Publisher: D.K. Printworld
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9788124609798
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Two centuries of British rule crystallized in the minds of English educated Indians a peculiar mindset that tended to undervalue their native ethos and moorings, and make English culture more attractive. This tendency is called the "colonial syndrome". This syndrome has infected the modern Indian elite, who abandon their cultural roots and imitating the Western ways. This situation has drained them off their intrinsic creative capabilities and rendered them less likely to make any significant original contributions to nation building.
This book, an outcome of Prof. K. Ramakrishna Rao's work as a National Fellow of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), attempts to define and elucidate this syndrome and its ill effects on the modern Indian mindset, and suggests means to contain and overcome it. It alerts people and the leadership about the negative and cascading effects of colonial syndrome, and pleads for Indianization of education, philosophy and psychology, among others in the country. Mahatma Gandhi's concept of svade?? is the driving force here. It has no negative attributes, only positive self-assertion for common good.
Colonial Syndrome goes on to analyses Gandhi's concept of svade??, and attempts to make clear the difference between education in India and Indian education, Indian philosophy and philosophy in India, and psychology in India and Indian psychology and emphasizes that India had its own unique standing on education, philosophy and psychology which needs to be revived and nurtured for fast social and economic development.

About the Author:
Professor Koneru Ramakrishna Rao is currently Chancellor of GITAM (deemed to be) University. He has the rare distinction of being National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research and the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, and Distinguished Honorary Professor at Andhra University. His earlier academic appointments include Professor of Psychology and Vice-Chancellor at Andhra University; Executive Director, Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, USA; Chairman, A.P. State Council of Higher Education, and Advisor on Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh. He published 25 plus books and nearly 300 research papers.
Prof. Rao received numerous honours that include the national award Padma Shri from the President of India and Honorary Doctoral degrees from Andhra, Acharya Nagarjuna and Kakatiya universities. He was elected as the President of the US-based Parapsychological Association three times, the only Asian to be so honoured.

1

Introduction

India has been a pluralistic society and home for many people who came from different parts of the world. Some settled and became an integral part of Indian society. Some others came and left; but they left the imprints of their culture on the Indian soil and carried back with them some significant aspects of the native Indian ethos. The British came to India to trade; and eventually became her rulers for a significant period of time. Their occupation changed the history of the subcontinent. Unlike the previous invaders, they did not settle down and become a part of the Indian mosaic. Nor did they simply rob the country and return to England with the loot. Rather they changed the political and cultural history of India as no others had done before them. The political dominance was accompanied by a determined effort to culturally infect the country so that she would suffer from what we call the “colonial syndrome” that helps to create a mindset that would undermine the native ethos and overvalue the borrowed. The colonial syndrome affected most of the Indians who learned English language and were exposed to Western culture. As it happened, they constituted, thankfully only a small percentage of the population of the country. The majority of the people were fortunate at the time to be deprived of English education and were in that sense “illiterate”. The illiterate Indian masses kept their native ethos alive. That is the reason why the rural landscape remained Indian, while the urban elite tended to become Western oriented.

However, the consequences of the spread of Western education among the educated elite of the country have been quite disturbing, if not disastrous, because it is the English educated who played the leadership roles after India’s Independence. The national system of education was displaced by the European system, which took strong roots. Even seventy years after Independence, education in India continues the model the English left behind. This is so despite the fact that India had her own rich culture and strong educational tradition. Ancient India can boast of outstanding literary and philosophical treasures, which were left buried under the debris of colonial dominance. Worse is the segmentation of the colonial syndrome in the captive minds of Indians. This has led to progressive denigration of native ethos and preference for the borrowed. English language not only gained prominence but it also tended to undermine the native tongues, and thwarted their growth and development. As the Indian population became increasingly literate, with the British model intact, the colonial syndrome became more and more entrenched and widespread. It would soon reach such a point that it would become a norm rather than an aberration. As a consequence, the people living in India would lose their identity as Indians. English has now become lingua franca of international science and technology. It has consequently a distinct place in our educational system; but it cannot be at the cost of mother tongue and regional languages. These are indeed matters that need to be addressed earnestly.

We explore in this book, first the present state of education in the country in relation to the native educational ethos and the lack of consistency between them. We note how ancient Indian education involved search for truth and self-realization, and how it served to preserve the past culture and at the same time encourage adaptation, creativity and innovation. The objectives included (a) formation of character with emphasis on ethical living, (b) building up of personality, and (c) training successive generations in the performance of their social and religious duties.

We then go on to examine the state of philosophy in the country in relation to classical Indian thought. Philosophy has a special niche in the Indian psyche. However, during the colonial rule, Western philosophy found a dominant place in Indian universities and the native philosophical traditions tended to be neglected. It led to a kind of “student famine” in the departments of philosophy in the country. Further, it deprived Indians during the colonial period from making any significant original contributions. We attribute the lack of creativity and original philosophical contributions during the colonial period almost entirely to the neglect of native traditions. The singular exception to this is K.C. Bhattacharyya, who pleaded for svadeœÁ ideas. Things changed somewhat since then. We now find, however, a somewhat changing scenario. We examine the noteworthy trends towards finding their native roots by a few Indian philosophers. We briefly discuss in this context the philosophical contributions of some of the notable persons including Satchidananda Murty, Daya Krishna and J.N. Mohanty.

We then go on in the following chapter to describe briefly the current state of psychological teaching and research in India and examine at some length the psychological ideas in classical Indian thought. We again find a misfit between current psychological practices and classical thought. We then note the emergence of a new discipline under the rubric of Indian psychology – a psychology with its roots in native traditions, which appears to have the potential to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity in psychology in India.

The last chapter is devoted to examining the reasons for the unsettling state of affairs as discussed in the previous chapters and to finding ways of overcoming the hurdles in the way of promoting study of and research in social sciences in India. This leads us to examine at some length what we label as the colonial syndrome, its characteristics and how it affects our perceptions, thought process and actions, and to discuss the ways of dealing with them. In this context, we find M.K. Gandhi’s concept of svadeœÁ and some elements in B.R. Ambedkar’s later writings very helpful not merely to understand the colonial syndrome but also to find ways of containing it.

The objective of our exercise is to identify the factors that may be responsible for the relative lack of original and creative contributions by Indians at this time. It is our contention that the continued presence of the colonial syndrome is the main culprit. In this context, we repeat, Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of svadeœÁ and his emphasis on self-help and self-esteem appear to be eminently relevant. Therefore, there is need for studying Gandhi, contextualizing his ideas, and adapting and developing them further. Similarly, the work and writings of B.R. Ambedkar appear to be quite relevant. Gandhi and Ambedkar together cover the entire spectrum of native Indian ethos, Hinduism (in Gandhi; it includes Jainism) and Buddhism, the two faces of classical Indian tradition.

With her teeming millions and their glorious centuries-old tradition, India should be at the forefront of opening up new frontiers of knowledge and new fields of action. If this is not happening now it is because of the lack of proper fit of the current state of education with native tradition. Our intellectual tools are in large part borrowed, imitative and alien. It is not the national pride that calls for a change. It is dire necessity. In the pages to follow we make a modest attempt to focus and reflect on this problem.

2

Gandhi’s Way : A Bird’s Eye-View

M.K. Gandhi’s was a life of struggle. He sought freedom through self-realization, and self-realization by means of self-effort. Self-support, as implied in his concept of svadeœÁ, was the means as well as the principle behind his practices. SvadeœÁ is what grows out of one’s culture. At the same time it enables the person to adapt herself to the demands of changing circumstances. SvadeœÁ is Gandhi’s mantra to counter the videœÁ (colonial) mindset that distorted and dwarfed for centuries India’s progress, both economic and social.

Mahatma Gandhi attained his martyrdom soon after India became a free and self-governing country, the goal he sought for nearly one half of a century. However, Gandhi’s death came before the country could take up his constructive programme he so carefully crafted and to which he was so deeply committed. His mind was pregnant with enormous possibilities for economic development and educational reforms in the country. It continues to have relevance even today when there is such ever-growing globalization in every conceivable sphere. We discuss briefly in this chapter some aspects of Gandhi’s economic thought, his scheme of basic education and his concept of satyÀgraha as an instrument of socio-political change. Then, we go on in the following chapters to examine how the Mahatma’s spirit of svadeœÁ (Indianness) is lost in the post-Gandhi period, dampening creativity and originality in the intellectual climate of the country.

Gandhian Economics

Some scholars such as B.N. Ghosh (2012) asserted that Gandhian ideas “do not belong to the domain of pure economics” (p. xi). “The so-called Gandhian economics”, says Ghosh, “is a conflation of many heterogeneous ideas including those of sociology, politics, economics, morality and culture. Such a type of interdisciplinary study falls within the domain of political economy and not pure economics” (p. xv). This may be so, but it will not make Gandhi’s ideas any less relevant to economics. We will have a little more to say on this later. Gandhi was not of course an economist by training or by vocation; but his writings on economic matters have profound implication to the study as well as practice of economics. His thought is markedly different from Marxian theories as well as the laissez-faire capitalist economics of Adam Smith and the neoclassical economists. Gandhi was not in favour of indiscriminate industrialization, free play of market forces and total private ownership. He was equally against governmental control. “Free trade for India”, Gandhi wrote: “has proved her curse and held her in bondage” (CWMG, 21: 547).

From the Gandhian perspective, there is a dire need to reconstruct the very foundations of modern economics. One of the central principles of current economic theory is “maximizing behaviour”, which is none other than what Francis Edgeworth described over a hundred years ago as promoting self-interest. It is the maxim, which states that every person functions to promote his self-interest. Economics driven by such a principle is better described as “egonomics” (Diwan and Lutz 1985: 14). Gandhi squarely opposed such utilitarian notion of self-interest driving economic thought,...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Gandhi’s Way : A Bird’s Eye-View
• 3. Education in India and Indian Education
• 4. Indian Philosophy and Philosophy in India
• 5. Psychology in India and Indian Psychology
• 6. The Colonial Syndrome and the Indian Mindset
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index