India’s medieval and colonial history and its journey towards a constitutional entity have always been told through a specific perspective, keeping in line with the Nehruvian-Marxist ideology that gained currency in the wake of India’s independence and which wielded a monopolistic influence on the literature produced since August 1947. Very few authors have ventured to challenge the leftist narrative, much less provide a scholarly exposition of calling out the obvious bias in India’s history-telling and its deep-rooted contempt for its civilisational history and evolution.
J Sai Deepak, through being richly persuasive and in possession of unmatched scholarship, brings a stirring and edifying take on topics hitherto pushed into oblivion: how coloniality continues to influence contemporary consciousness among Indians, the urgent need to embrace decoloniality as our first steps towards reclaiming civilisational identity, the impact of the combination of European and Middle Eastern coloniality on native consciousness, and its consequent influence on India’s partition movement, its evolution towards a constitutional entity, and how it continues to inform contemporary consciousness in post-independence India.
In the first two books of the trilogy: ‘India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution‘ and ‘India, Bharat and Pakistan: The Constitutional Journey of a Sandwiched Civilisation‘, JSD takes on the path less travelled, expounding how the concept of “coloniality” extends beyond the physical occupation of land and exploitation of resources and is a product of a deep-seated mindset that fuels colonialism. He traces the individual and combined impact of European consciousness through British rule and the Middle East consciousness through centuries of Muslim rule on the Indic consciousness, their role in shaping India’s constitutional journey, and the bloody partition of the country.
In his book “India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution,” J Sai Deepak, a lawyer and thinker, contends that although the colonisation of India’s geographical terrain may have been undone, its people’s minds are still under the influence and constrained by a historical narrative imposed upon them by outsiders, referred by him as ‘coloniality’. Deepak argues that coloniality is so deeply ingrained in the psyche of an average Indian, chiefly through the inheritance of the educational system bequeathed by the coloniser, that the native consciousness, even after seven decades of independence, is still a product of a colonial mindset and informed by western ideals and principles.
He presents a compelling case of how a majority section of Indians are still prisoners of the subconscious colonialism that continues to inform their beliefs and notions, explaining how suppression of indigenous beliefs and the mere desire to express native principles are increasingly labelled as “illiberal” in comparison to other countries where such expressions are celebrated as acts of courage and agency.
In ‘India, That is Bharat’, Deepak takes on the role of an intrepid explorer. His quest leads him to the very core of the idea of Bharat, where he immerses himself in an exploration of its fundamental underpinnings. Starting with a deep dive into historical accounts, he unearths the gradual corrosion that has plagued this concept throughout the ages.
With his profound knowledge of the legal realm, Deepak marshals persuasive evidence to highlight the enduring nature of Bharat. Armed with his findings, he sets out to carve a path towards a decolonised interpretation of the Constitution. His aim is to rectify distortions and breathe new life into the true essence of Bharat, restoring its authenticity and reclaiming its rightful place.
Among few of the most momentous things uncovered in the book is Deepak’s attempt at dismantling the widely held belief that the notion of India as a nation-state did not exist prior to the 1857 mutiny. He presents that India had a ‘civilisational identity’ long before the advent of European colonisers and Middle East invaders on its shores. He professes that there was a rudimentary framework of a “civilization state” that was systematically and rapaciously exploited by an invasive mindset. JSD asserts that the religious motivations behind Columbus’ missions and the British government’s casual infusion of missionary ideas into the Indian social fabric are difficult to refute, and are damning evidence of the British’s imperial conquest of India being guided by the ‘Christian Exercise’.
He goes on to cite various instances when the European and Middle East consciousness asserted itself—from the interference of the Church in India’s daily affairs to the two-nation theory propounded by the likes of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, Syed Ahmed Khan, Syed Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and other subsequent Muslim ideologues—which played a massive role in suppressing India’s civilisational identity and supplanting it with imported notions of ‘Nation States’ and ‘pan-Islamism’.
His second book, ‘India, Bharat and Pakistan: The Constitutional Journey of a Sandwiched Civilisation’, charts a path exploring the combined influence of European and Middle Eastern consciousness on India’s Constitutional evolution. The author effectively debunks the concept of the two-nation theory as a 19th-century phenomenon, highlighting how a pan-Islamist ideologue Shah Waliullah Dehlawi was among the first progenitors of the notion that Muslims constitute a separate nation—a belief taken forward by many others, including Syed Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Syed Ahmed Khan, and subsequent Muslim League leaders such as MA Jinnah, Raja of Mahmudabad, Syed Salimullah—built on the idea that engendered pan-Islamism among Indian Muslims and effectively led to India’s partition.
Sai Deepak’s distinctiveness among previous authors who have tackled this subject lies in his original thinking, which unveiled the true origins of the Two-Nation theory, tracing it back to the decline of the powerful Mughal Empire in India. Following its disintegration, Islamic scholars sought solace by returning to the fundamental principles of their religion and striving to revive it. During this period, Shah Waliullah Dehlawi emerged as a prominent cleric who espoused the intolerant doctrines of Wahhabism, which he had encountered during his time in Arabia.
Shah Waliullah urged the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent not to assimilate into society, as he believed that contact with Hindus would taint their Islamic purity. He encouraged them to perceive themselves as part of the global Ummah, the religious community and mandated adherence to the customs and traditions of the Prophet. While he allowed the Shias to observe their festivals publicly, albeit with strict moderation, Hindu infidels were denied even this modest privilege. Waliullah harboured such animosity towards his homeland, India, that he invited the Afghan warlord Ahmed Shah Durrani to invade the country and teach the non-Muslims a lesson. In his letter, he provided a detailed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Marathas and Jats. This laid the foundation for the sprouting of the Two-Nation theory in India.
JSD provides a context of the partition of India by explaining in detail the sequence of events that led to the partition of Bengal, which he describes as the earliest manifestation of the two-nation theory in the early nineteenth century. The author busts the popularly held belief that Bengal’s partition was a result of Britain’s ‘Divide and Rule’ policy, highlighting how Muslim ideologues, including Muslim League leaders, vociferously demanded the partition of the state in such a manner so as to turn the erstwhile Bengali Hindu majority into minority and achieve Muslim dominance.
The author also demolishes another myth popularised by Nehruvian historians that Hindu-Muslim unity existed long before the Britishers took control of India and it became the first casualty of Britain’s ‘Divide and Rule’ policy. However, that was not the case, and Hindu-Muslim riots predated Europeans and were a source of constant problems for several Mughal rulers, right from Akbar to Bahadur Shah Zafar. The Hindu-Muslim dissension obviously aggravated during the British period, owing to the colonial policy of pitting one community against the other, however, Deepak argues that the race-conscious Britishers’ overt support to the Muslims, whom they considered to be closer to the Christians being the people of the book, to blunt the numerical superiority of more educated and highly rebellious Hindus, deepened the fissures between the two communities.
However, the Hindu and Muslim leaders did come together to fulfil their individual goals and put up a pretence of interfaith harmony to extract better bargains from their colonial overlords. Deepak explains that while Hindus had the realisation of self-government in mind, the Muslims, on the other hand, wanted a communal electorate in a democratic form of government proposed to be introduced in the country, with a higher proportion of seats reserved in every province of the country compared to their numerical strength.
The interfaith harmony, Deepak avers, was a mirage, as the Hindu-Muslim unity always remained contingent upon Hindus relinquishing their beliefs and objections to practices such as cow slaughter, and their attempts to overthrow the British yoke, since the former offended the religious sentiments of the Muslims while the latter would result in Muslims living in a Hindu-majority India.
Even the Congress party, which claimed to be secular, collaborated with the deeply communal Muslim League, agreeing with the latter’s problematic demand of separate electorates for Muslims and standing beside the League for its demand to release the Ali brothers in the period between 1916 to 1917, who would later go on to spearhead the Khilafat movement that saw large-scale anti-Hindu riots across India, including the infamous Moplah Genocide, when 38 Hindus were slaughtered and thrown in a well by Muslim mob demanding a Caliphate in Malabar.
Here again, Deepak reveals another truth bomb that Gandhi alone was not responsible for shaping Congress’ policy towards appeasing Muslims and strengthening pan-Islamist sentiments among the Muslims. Even before Gandhi arrived on the scene and became a ‘force to reckon with’, Congress was favourably disposed toward the Muslim League, including its ‘Extremist’ leaders such as Tilak, Anni Besant, and Pal, beseeching the British to release the Ali brothers and passing resolutions in support to the Ottoman Caliphate that was in the decline, especially in the wake of the Balkan Wars, when the four Balkan states: Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and emerged victorious, resulting in the Ottoman Empire losing its European provinces.
JSD also presents the craven role assumed by the Congress party, which went to great lengths to make common ground with the Muslim League and attain the chimera of Hindu-Muslim unity, agreeing to their every demand without receiving commensurate benefits in return, while being equally submissive if not more towards the British, imbibing the coloniser’s worldview with the belief that India did not have a bright and prosperous future without the ‘benevolent’ presence of the British colonisers.
Drawing on historical records and accounts to reproduce speeches and public statements from both prominent and not-so-prominent leaders of the time, including opinions of the British Viceroys and Secretary of State to India, discussions in the British Parliament, correspondences exchanged between British rulers and their Indian counterparts, and so on, the book provides a deeper insight into the Indian history as against the reductionist and one-dimensional version peddled by the Nehruvian-Marxist historian post India’s independence.
JSD’s second book delves into the events spanning from 1905 to 1924, effectively setting the groundwork for the third book of the trilogy. In this forthcoming instalment, the author will carefully examine historical incidents that profoundly influenced the destiny of the Indian subcontinent as we recognise it today. These include the emergence of irreconcilable differences between the Muslim League and the Congress party, as well as the culmination of the constant subjugation of Indic consciousness by the combined forces of European and Middle Eastern colonialism, the lingering impact of these events continues to shape the thought process of contemporary India.
