15bal002.docx

VII SEMESTER B.A.LL.B. (HONS.)

BOOK REVIEW BECOMING INDIAN: THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY BY: PAVAN K . VARMA

AS A PART OF CONTINUOUS EVALUATION FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2018-2019 PREPARED & SUBMITTED BY:

SUBMITTED TO :

ADITYA SHUKLA

MR. NITESH CHAUDHARY

15BAL002

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR INSTITUTE OF LAW NIRMA UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT: Culture and identity are considered to be the most quintessential element of any country or civilization. Culture and national identity is crucial for a country as culture is a shared sense of customs, language, belief, and behavior. Culture identity makes a person feel he is belonged to some group that provides a sense of security. For a nation it is important if the citizen’s share with the same culture and identity, the country would be much easier to step forward, it is not to say that the country would be modernized quicker or the economy, but the process of modernization would be much more stable. India has been one of the most diverse nations of this world holding together a treasure of culture. Having a treasure attracted a lot of invaders who tried to rip apart this country for their own gain, after the invaders and the rulers the British came to India and colonized us for 200 years, which had an impact that to this day is visible in our everyday lives. We considered the British the epitome of a utopic world following which we became their imitators. In the process of getting validation and acceptance in the west we reduced ourselves to caricature or mimicry. The purpose of this article is to understand the process which resulted in this change of a civilizational excellence to civilizational imitation. For this we need to understand what the intervening period of colonialism did to us in the realms of language, culture and creativity. Only if the impact of the past is understood can we grapple with the forces of co -option and asymmetry at work today, and reappropriate our culture authentically and with dignity. KEYWORDS: COLONIZATION , CULTURE, CO-OPTION, IMITATION, LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION: The author was a Indian civil services officer which was set up by the British in 1872, it is his experience working with the British and with the people of his native country that he could see what was happening, being a ICS officer he has reiterated several times how the British created ICS to create a elite class of Indians to rule India through Indians. The author has divided the book into 7 chapters in order to portray the different aspects through which we can evidently say that we did have freedom from the British when we attained independence, the independence attained can be said to be of physical in nature, meaning we got free from the British physically and not mentally. One of the myths about colonization of India is that people believe that British colonized us through physical subjugation what they don’t understand is that they ruled us for so many years not because of their army but

through knowledge. For all those years we were being psychologically conditioned to do what the British did, and in the process become like them and loose our culture and identity.

PURUSING THROUGH THE CHAPTER’S: One of the chapter in the book portrays that how the English language became the most important language of this country which is very evident today when we see that the majority of population in India can understand English, they can read write English but if asked to read or write in Hindi or any other native language they would find it difficult if not impossible. English is a language of great benefit, it serves a purpose and should be available to everyone but it is false and damaging to forget how it was brought to and imposed on India. Today in our country we can see how English dominates every other language, when we see white ambassadors (the vehicle of high office) with this written on the back: GOVT OF INDIA. POWER BREAK KEEP DISTANCE or a sign board outside an important government office in the capital city reading INSURANCE REGULATORY AUTHORITY OF INDIA. We ourselves have chosen exile for us and the future generations. In another chapter the author had tried to cover what legacy Macaulay had left. Macaulay is the person responsible for the position that English holds in the eyes of people alien to it. He gave certain instances where the level to which English language has been psychologically engrained in our brains, one such being when one of his Chinese counterpart was visi ting India for a meeting, while he took the Chinese official for a welcome dinner he noticed that that personal notes of that Chinese man which he had prepared for the meeting were in his own native language and not in English, another such example can be when India finally broke the chains of British bondage Nehru’s first words to the millions across the country waiting with waited breadth to hear one of the most towering leaders of the freedom movement were in English. Except for language there are other aspects which clearly show that British are still there with us. In this regard the author has talked about two cities, Delhi and Chandigarh. He tells us how the Rashtrapati bhawan in Delhi and the city of Chandigarh both the creations of the British people to this day dominate us and make us follow their definition of architecture. To this day there is no city in India that is as well planned as Chandigarh, or an architectural giant that is the rashtrapati bhawan. If one goes to visit Chandigarh or visits rashtrapati bhawan at every step one can feel the absence of our native culture.

REVIEW: According to me considering the west as the epitome of excellence and acceptance to the global world we became so blind that we gave such less priority to our own native culture that it got lost somewhere in the past. We can realize this in a better way if we see Japan where they are so happy with their culture, their way of drinking tea or having dinner, their dress, their language, their architecture, everything in that nation represents uniqueness or if we see any other country with a rich and unique culture. The case with India is heartbreaking where we can see the people talking in a foreign language even in their home or with their friends, it is sad that even the most important buildings do not represent our culture but a foreign culture, our songs our dress, our way of behaving, everything is an act of imitation. According to me the difference between the British and other invaders is that the British came to India from a industrialized country to take away everything that would profit them and the other invaders like Mughals they allowed for their cultural attributes- cuisine, music, language, dress, custom and aesthetic to blean into the weave of Indian life, the British were made of an entirely different fabric. They stayed in India but lived separately they lived with a superior feeling and not if everyone is a human being. The problem was that while the independence movement was in force all our leaders were busy to get us physical freedom, no one at that time realized that our psyche was also bein g colonized that somewhere our culture and identity was fading, today after more than 70 years of independence we are still struggling, yes there were a few benefits of the British coming to India like the Dalit issue and the women’s issue got highlighted because of them but if we talk only in the framework of culture and identity then there is not a single point on which we can say that their coming to India was of some benefit to us. Just like Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs the most basic need for humans is food, sex, shelter and then comes social relations security etc. same is with a nation for a nation to survive culture is the most basic need that needs to be fulfilled in order for the nation to move on to other needs. The condition of this country would have been much better if we would have saved our culture and would have taken only a few good things out of the British and not everything and becoming like them. The British did everything in their power to ruin us, they distorted our culture they made some of the great leaders of that time imitate them and starting to follow them. They were very smart and we Indians were naïve. Still even now the complex and deeply problematic legacies of colonialism continue to shape our world, we are faced with equally complex effects of globalization, which appears irreversible it is imperative therefore that those at the receiving end of the project of co option, whether at home or any other country that we preserve and reassert our cultural identity.