The British left India, but their agents, academicians, universities, and opinion makers did not allow the country to get rid of the colonial ideas. The Indians who fought the Mughals never felt so inferior like they started feeling under the British regime, said Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Hosabale was addressing a programme organised for the launch of former MP Balbir Punj’s book, “Narrative, Ek Maya Jaal”.
Speaking about narratives that dominate people’s thought process, Hosabale said, “The primary reason for the problems the north-east region is facing has been the idea of multination states. We believe that we are multination states like it was for Soviet Russia.”
We cannot talk about religion, because we are secular, said Hosabale. “What is religion? Is it only about the process of worship? We don’t want to understand, we don’t want to read our ancient literature, we tend to believe that we were civilised by the British. Every traditional and ancient practice is regressive. We never felt so inferior even when we fought the Mughals. The British left, but their agents in the form of academicians, opinion makers, judiciary, and universities stayed here and kept our minds colonised. We believed that outsiders are superior to us and we do not have any contribution to the civilisation,” he added.
Pointing out that citizenship is a politico-legal identity while nationalism is a socio-cultural concept, he said that Indians need to write more such books in Hindi because it is an Indian language.
“Had this book been written in English, it would have been sold in Khan Market. People would have bought and read it, thinking it was written by an intellectual. But Hindi books are not like that. In India, it is now believed that people who can’t speak English, are not intellectuals. We need to break this idea and decolonise our minds. That is why I requested Balbirji to write this book in Hindi,” added Hosabale.
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