Book Review | Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children

What is the legacy of colonization on the minds of the erstwhile colonized? While tomes have been written about it from postcolonial thinkers from around the world, there is scant material for Hindus to rely upon; to explain the self degradation they feel in private and the discrimination they face in public spaces.

The book ‘Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children: A Francophone Postcolonial Analysis’ does a unique service to the dialogue, by tracing the origins of this self deprecation to the works of the 18th century British colonialist James Mill, and explaining through thorough analysis the machinations and implications of colonization.

The lay man’s understanding of colonization throughout the world is that it was a quest for resources, where the technologically superior West lay claim over the rest of the world, and imported its own governance systems to successfully extract those resources. This understanding naturally lends itself to the belief that colonization is the physical conquest of a nation, and once the conquering power has departed, the colonized nation has been decolonized. However, that explanation is in direct contrast to the lived experience of the descendants of the colonized nations.

The authors of this book describe colonization as an act of ‘epistemic violence’, where the knowledge worldview of the colonized is completely mauled and distorted by the colonizer. As the famous quote by George Orwell goes,

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

To achieve this, the colonizing power reiterates at every opportunity the narrative of its superiority, and the sub-human barbarity of the colonized.

It is not a newly pitched theory to explain the colonization of Hindus by the Britishers, but one that has been found to be a common template in every colonized society of the world. To flesh out the truth of this claim and lay bare the exact contours of colonial dishonesty, the authors rely upon the theses of three prominent postcolonial thinkers from the Francophone: Aimé Césaire, Franz Fanon, and Albert Memmi.

Each of these thinkers has produced copious amounts of work on post colonial societies around the globe, with the central theses that “the colonizers spent considerable time, energy, money, and intellectual power in characterizing the colonized as uncivilized, primitive, and savage”.

James Mill’s work ‘The History of British India’, was the definitive book used by the East India Company to administer India. It was a governance manual, which also became the basis for the modern biased, racist and negative stereotype of Hinduism.

To illuminate the connection between this colonial document and the modern representation of Hinduism, the book is structured into six broad chapters.

The first covers the history and orientation of Mill, who despite having never set foot in India, was arrogant enough to create a ‘History’ for understanding it. The second chapter familiarizes the reader with the works of the Francophone thinkers, exposing colonization as an investment in narrative. The third and fourth chapters describe the entire dehumanization of Hindus at the hands of Mill, including the projection of enlightenment ideals to imagine Hinduism and Hindu society. The fifth and sixth chapters describe the transition of this content from Mill’s manual to the modern day school textbooks, alongwith its impact on Hindu American children today.

The first part of the book leads the reader through the mind baffling assumptions and assertions of Mill. To depict the Hindus as savages and themselves as civilized, every aspect of Hindu life, from history to education to language to governance to religion is studded into a narrative of oppression and casteist discrimination. The goal was to instill in the incoming British administrator a dripping contempt towards the natives, foreclosing any attempts for a deeper understanding of the people to be governed.

Added to it was the projection of shortcomings of Mill’s own society at that time onto the Hindu society. The ideological orientation of Mill as a utilitarian with an ax to grind against the prevailing political situation in England is a case in point. Mill used the excuse of Hindu ‘despots’ in history to call out and criticize what he detested in British society. His protestant hatred of Brahmins as priests, no doubt inspired by missionary writings of those times, was the seed for what is defined as Brahmanical oppression and privilege today.

One noteworthy feature of the book is that it does not occupy itself with countering the malicious lies laid down by Mill directly, except as sparing notes through the works of other British commentators on the work of Mill himself. This is deliberate, as the book adheres to its objective of laying bare the “discourse in all its comprehensiveness and completeness, (showcasing) the numerous ways in which he (Mill) has characterized the Hindus as savage.” It is a rigorous deconstruction of the narrative, one through which numerous reconstructive counters hopefully will follow in the future.

It is also critical that the scope of the book was not expanded, since the colonizer has perfected the art of deflection when countered by direct evidence. The authors mention it while discussing the tactics of many prejudiced scholars today, who when countered with contrary evidence, call into question the accuser’s competence and loyalty, dwell upon points of frivolity etc. It is a tactic most visible in the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)/ Aryan Migration Theory (AMT) vs Out of India Theory (OIT) debate, where the goalposts are constantly shifted and the evidence is muddled.

At one point the book explores how fascism and nazism, which are the whipping boys of Western liberalism, are actually inward colonialism. The same tactics of dehumanizing propaganda, when applied on the home continent, become the most detested forms of human excesses. No wonder then, that in the politically correct, sanitized version of history, these new age labels are used to put down the countries which display some semblance of regaining their national pride - (read)Hindu nationalism, muscular nationalism, majoritarianism, fascism etc.

The final part of the book covers the most important aspect of the replication of Mill’s biases into modern textbooks as authoritative accounts. Comparing the ‘History of British India’ of Mill with modern syllabus of the McGraw-Hills publication (a representative of the syllabus studied by students en masse), the authors show how not only the lies and biases, but nearly even the order of topics covering Hinduism is borrowed from Mill. While the racist overtones cannot be copied, therefore the same content is presented in a politically correct and sanitized manner.

This colonial narrative has the same effect as a racist discourse, which “produces self-hatred, self-rejection, and lack of self-worth, leading to marginalization and withdrawal on one hand and assimilation and racelessness on the other hand.”

This is backed by the testimonies of Hindu children in America, who face a double whammy of external snubbing through bullying, taunting, teasing and internal disillusionment through shame about their religion and culture.

In one of his talks, author and litigator J Sai Deepak mentioned how an identity is something that one is born with, and which though however one may try to run away from, others will still hoist it on them. The Hindu identity shall continue to be attacked unless the person converts (which may not guarantee cessation of racism) or develops a proper counter.

This book is great information and ammunition for Hindu children and adults, not just in America but around the world, for developing that counter. Of course, the turnaround will only come with a sense of confidence which comes from the infusion of śakti, like in the actions of the great Swami Vivekananda. However, works such as this book lay the foundation for a rigorous pūrva pakṣa, and therefore must be read and spread widely.

The digital copy of the book is freely available. Please download and share widely:

Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children