In the post-independence India, I feel one major blunder we had done was giving importance to fictional history over factual history. Society has forgotten to analyze things or ask rational questions rather started to just adopt things which had been imposed on them. I won’t blame our ancestors or government for that as they are the actual victim of colonial hangover but we must not let this hangover carry-on for coming generation. Generally we ignore or fail to analyze small events in society which in turns lead to unavoidable problems. I call it “A Cancer Theory”. It’s the consumption on which the body reacts internally and when we start ignoring the syndrome the problems start. Now think our society as our own physical body whose syndrome must not be ignored and it requires constant scrutiny. I believe “Life will not give you many chances to try, we must learn from our past”.
Colonial hangover had shown the syndrome of inferiority complex and our continuous ignorance towards that may lead us to a weak society. We have till date not started to think proactively at the micro level. Few things may sound irrelevant to us today but it will not in coming future.
Almost every Indian specially the resident of West Bengal must have thought why the state is called “West Bengal” whereas it is on the eastern part of the country and I am sure many of us knows the concept of East Bengal and West Bengal separation into two states by British in the year 1905. My point is after the independence why we had not changed the name of West Bengal as after 1955 there was no East Bengal.
If we observe India’s map, Seven Sister States are actually located on the eastern part of the country but we call it northeast region. Have we wondered why? Because initially British had named the region making Bengal presidency as an epicenter and we are still continuing the same. I always get confuse why the name Uttar Pradesh as geographically it is located on northeastern part. Problem is we don’t even bother to logically or historically rename the states. This shows the ignorant attitude toward colonial hangover.
Some of our cultural acts are seen as superstition tradition by the western or to be western people and we believe them thinking whatever they say that’s the only truth. This shows our inferiority complex. I would like to put an example to make things clearer. “Upvas” is superstition but intermediate fasting is scientific or Ayurveda vs. Naturopathy & many. It is because we are imposing tradition not rationalizing it. This attitude is derived from the colonial era and I call it a colonial hangover. Our land was always a land of seekers & so curiosity should be natural to us.
Suppose there is a particular product which is present in India & some “X” country and it can be produce in any one location. Inferiority complex is so much deeply impacted us that first thought will be that product must have been imported to India and lastly or never we will think vice versa. We had been always told by our Fictional historians that we were more of insider and don’t believe in crossing the boundaries but that can be contradicted easily. Had we ever thought that rice is preferred by the gulf region and was a part of Roman cuisine, from where they had imported it? Rice can’t be grown at least in gulf region and silk route doesn’t exist before 100 BC. So if we would have exported it then we must have chosen the sea route with big ships. This proofs existence of shipping industry in ancient India.
There are many such historical facts which we must know, it will not only makes us proud & confident but also helps to overcome colonial hangover. Colonial hangovers are just a blocked mindset which results to inferiority complex and we just need to raise our conciseness.
