The History Of Transformational Change

People don't like politicians. 

Yet Modi broke all records and came to power, even stronger than before. 

A worthy ponder - what's his secret sauce?

The Moditva doctrine appeals much to the Bharat-bhakt creed, those seeking an indigenous cultural renaissance, that has otherwise been long subdued. 

The said renaissance is about decolonization of the Indian population's mind i.e. intellectual property too, not just eviction of the British from the physical real estate called India. 

The indigenous thought was buried by the British courtesy "Baron" Thomas Babington Macaulay.

His strategy was to remove from history books, all that's worthy of admiration within the Indian civilizational context, that might bring pride & reason of 'Being' to future generations. Only one's Being manifes into Doing. 

Putting it differently, the strategy was to teach the future adults of India, that it's a defeated race and there's merit in doing it the English culture way.

For Macaulay the logic was straight & simple - brighter the student today, easier the subjugation tomorrow, so long as the student was taught a history of his or her defeated ancestors.

The ancient Indian literature & relics which stood as a testimony of a very advanced thought, engineering, culture & civilization - was deliberately ignored or even belittled.

That was continued by status quoists non-strategist government of "independent" India. That's cause :

1) The British suddenly left India post the 2nd world war, to focus on their efforts in the reparations of their economy & were finding it difficult to contain the many rising mutinies. They handed power hurriedly to a bunch of fellows, who somewhat felt obliged to their erstwhile masters.

2) To add decay to the dilapidation, sadly the early leadership of India in subsequent election took support from the Leftist to form the government. As a result, the Marxist historians that came on board in the academia, didn't challenge much of Macaulay's tamperings. The only modifications allowed, were to tactfully present the Indian freedom struggle movement as a peaceful, one in which the British glady negotiated into & left. It was to showcase the ruling party's soft power & prowess, to cement their political agenda.

3) To make matters worse, Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al-Hussaini Azad, the first education minister of independant India for the initial decade, was a Saudi born, never had any formal education except briefly going to a madrassa, and had interest in the Khilafat movement. 

This then led a good student of history to conclude that India's problem was in her medieval Hindu thought, the Indian National Congress was a savior, aligning to everything Western was good, and to be secular means to accept & appreciate all that is Islamic without any questions.

That came at the cost of everything to do with what is innate to India. That not only included Sanskrit, the rich language of the scholars, but also one's very own mother tongue !

Englishness then was projected as a ticket to a brighter future.

Heritage then obviously felt like a product of the past with a firm expiry date & indigenous culture as a burden. 

They would teach us at length of the entire lineage of the Mughal dynasty but not of their ruthlessness while destroying the Hindu temples,  or converting large swaths of population by force. Nor would they show much of the local heroes like Rana Pratap, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sri Guru Gobind Singh, etc. 

World War was taught sans the mention of the sacrifice made by Indian soldiers and of course the loot from the Indian soil to finance the British empire or it's wars was put under the carpet. 

They hid from us that the temple was the epicenter of major activity in ancient India, including a place for exchange of thought, art & exhibition. That nodal point was thoroughly ransacked or disturbed. While the Mughals destroyed temples by brute force, the sophisticated British carefully removed the idols from them to adorn their homes, gardens or museums. 

So while they wouldn't tell of the mass destruction of monuments here by invaders, they would also keep us bereft of knowledge of the grand wonder-of-the-world type monuments of Indian origin found not only in India but also in Afghanistan, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia to Indonesia which were under the influence of ancient Indian civilization. 

In "cultural" history, we would be taught, for example the architectural beauty of the Taj Mahal or Humayun's tomb but not a word is mentioned on the grandness of Kailasa Temple or as why did the sarvajanik Ganesha became a mass cultural movement. 

The independence struggle mostly highlighted Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who were close to Mountbatten, a British administer who was also close to the royalty there, and waz the last viceroy of India. 

Real history became history, really. 

It's believed, if you want to control the future, you must control the past. To control the past, you must control the present. Those who control the present, own the history of the past that provides nourishment to the future. 

If you teach of the glory of past to the children, you are more likely to produce real inspired men in the future i.e. proud motivated defenders of the legacy & heritage of motherland.

However, with a truncated, pygmied, and morphed history by both the British & the continuation of same by the early Indian leadership, further backed by the communists, people slowly became psychologically embarrassed Indians or Hindus. 

That, even when the Hindu-centric civilization is the only living civilization that has survived thousands of years, including in the face of the onslaught by both the Mughals and the British. 

And survived it did because in the ancient Hindu wisdom, at it's natural core is Cultural Secularism - one that is open, pluralistic, inclusive & with no prescription whatsoever. 

The faithful are all seekers of a Universal Truth by whatever method, practice or belief in God one chooses, including with the freedom to not choosing anything at all i.e. if they believe it will lead to salvation. 

For lack of word, it was called a religion but all it is, is a way of life. 

What they are expected to follow is their dharma, translated loosely as principled duty, one that they deemed as fit for the larger good of both - self & the society.

In this kind of way of life, the only fundamental, is that there are none.

Thus, the narrow singular steadfast concepts of The God, The Holy Place, The Holy Book, The Prayer, etc do not exist. Obviously then blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien to the land here. 

And so there's never ever been a case of conflict between the State and Temple here nor have there ever been crusades or religious zealotry, all of which were witnessed in the West. Secularism as a cure was therefore required for the Western society but has little utility here. 

This too was never taught in India.  

It is this philosophy which gives rise to Bhartia or "Cultural Secularism", one which allowed for the Hindus to accept the Jews, fleeing from religious persecution & to provide them shelter; it allowed for making of one of the earliest mosque in the world i.e. Cheraman Masjid by a Hindu king for the convenience of his Muslim visitors; it allowed for the Ezharappallikal Churches in the first century within the Brahmin community at Malabar Coast, it allowed for a Hindu king to resettle the Parsis who were displaced from Persia including building a fire temple for them & one in which the builder king himself or his subjects agreed to not enter as requested by the Parsi immigrants.

All this much before a written constitution or it's pet word 'secularism' found its roots here. 

Thus in the context of Indianness - the State should have no embarrassment in embracing the faith, as a guiding principle for serving, rather than keeping an arms length from it.

But because it was not taught here, the said Cultural Secularism that existed in practice, got replaced by introduction of a Constitutional one, with an attempt to model it on a Western idea, that too in a surreptitious manner in the midst of a national emergency. 

Again, that was never taught to the political science students.

Further, that Constitutional secularism was used as a vote banking tool by politicians, to pander to those following the Abrahamic faiths, that inherently are proselytizing & predatory by nature, with claims of their's being the only way to achieve salvation. 

The mere mention of some of these truths or any suggestion for correction of the anomalies, is inconveniencing some.

What they forget, is that only when you find authentic pride in your own deep roots of the past, can you rise tall in future. 

History teaches lessons and we must seek them out - "Do forgive but don't forget" is a valuable one. 

However beware. For those who do not learn from history, are often condemned to be taught the same lesson again & again. 

The current government is now asserting a transformational change as it believes that truth must be told for the sake of truth, not with a view to seek revenge. 

And they will resurrect the real history and counter intuitive to what some believe, it will in fact bring long term peace & harmony in the country.

For his huge number of followers, Modi is just a name - a metaphor for change that they too seek. And change always faces resistance.

That has been the history of change !