WORLD AFFAIRS, Volume 6, Number 1, January-March 2002, 
pages 96-105.

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INDIA: A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE

by Subhash Kak

Current trends of population and economic growth
indicate that in a couple of decades India,
United States and China will be
the three principal powers of the world.
As Europe fades in importance, perceptions and attitudes 
regarding India, forged during the height of the
colonial period, will be challenged.
The new understanding that will emerge will be an element 
in the dynamic that drives India's transformation, and
it will also profoundly effect the world-view of 
the Westerner.
 
In popular narrative, India is stereotyped in a
dichotomous manner: as a land of deep social
stratification and unceasing strife, and a place of 
uncommon wisdom and spirituality. This dichotomy 
represents the ambiguity felt by the West toward India, 
reflecting the complexity of their historical encounter.

Described by medieval Europeans as a paradisiac
kingdom that Europe aspired to be, India was transformed 
in a few more centuries to be the antithesis to Europe's 
self-image. European scholars, reflecting prejudices of 
the 19th century, saw their own culture as masculine, 
rational, and scientific while they viewed India 
as feminine, mystical, and irrational.  The 
caricature of India as the [Other] to Europe arose 
out of the need to justify the domination of India 
by appeal to reason. Europe saw India's history in 
racial terms, where the original vitality of the 
Indo-European migrants had been sapped by an 
admixture with the native races. Europe's task 
was to separate Indians from their "decadent" 
culture so that they could get connected to the "superior" 
European heritage. 

THE BURDEN OF PHILOLOGY

This view of India was bolstered by the philologists,
who provided the first Western accounts of the key 
Indian texts. Ill-equipped to understand 
material of bewildering complexity, they spoke about the contents in
disparaging terms. They were prepared to grant India
its speculative philosophy, but they found the system
underlying the ritual to be incomprehensible.

The discipline of philology was nurtured on naive ideas
of genetic inheritance, for the modern science of genetics
was yet to be born. Inspired by Biblical notions of
language multiplicity arising out of degeneration of
society, a proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was
postulated. Behind this formulation was the history of
anti-Semiticism of Europe, and the PIE could
be offered as the [original] language in place of
Hebrew.

The philologists, prisoners to their prejudices
and etymologies, dismissed the prose commentaries on
the Vedas called the Brahamanas, which are central to
an understanding of the Vedic times and society.
Max Muller called the Brahmanas "a literature which for
pedantry and downright absurdity can hardly be matched
anywhere... The general character of these works is marked
by shallow and grandiloquence, by priestly conceit, and
antiquarian pedantry... These works deserve to be studied
as the physician studies the twaddle of idiots, and the raving
of madmen." By ignoring a major component of the literature
they missed an opportunity to understand India.

It was to justify their attitudes that Indologists fought
the idea that scientific progress had taken place
in India. They insisted that Indian mathematics and
astronomy was borrowed from the Greek and the Babylonians,
ignoring the countervailing evidence in the Brahmanas.
Neither would they countenance the fact that the
[Ashtadhyayi] of Panini (450 BC) was a very sophisticated
mathematical structure, unique in its conception, that
could have only emerged in a vital scientific tradition.

The Indologists argued that even great astronomers like 
Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara had copied data 
from foreign manuals. Although this was shown to be false by Roger 
Billard about thirty years ago, this statement continues to
be repeated by ill-informed Eurocentric historians. They
also tend to ignore the tradition of the great
Kerala mathematicians and astronomers who, several centuries
before Newton and Leibniz, invented advanced calculus.
Neither do they mention logicians in Bengal who developed 
sophisticated theories of logic about a thousand years 
before Europe.

My own research on the history of Indian science has brought
to light long-forgotten mathematics and astronomy in the
earliest Vedic period. These discoveries run counter to
the dogma at the basis of Indic studies of the past
century. This work started with my study of the
fire altar ritual of the Vedic people
and I found that behind the intricate designs of the altars
was an attempt to render the then-knowledge of the
outer and the inner worlds to the participants.

MACAULAY'S PROGRAM

The Indic traditions have been under relentless
attack by Eurocentric scholars who have controlled
the public discourse and contents of the textbooks for
nearly 200 years. The intention to destroy India's own traditions of knowledge
was articulated in Macaulay's famous Minute of 1835 which
led to the establishment of a colonialist system of education
that is still in force. 

Macaulay justified this by saying,
``I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the 
Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them 
who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library 
was worth the whole native literature of India...
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the
historical information which has been collected from 
all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less
valuable than what may be found in the most paltry 
abridgments used at preparatory schools in England...
We must at present do our best to form a class who 
may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern;
a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but 
English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.''

Macaulay's ignorance about India was matched by his
arrogance. His ideas were challenged in his own times,
but they won the day because they suited Britain 
in its creation of a system which would make India 
dependent not only physically but also intellectually. 
Indian tradition was now interpreted for Indians by Western
scholars who did not understand its complexity.
Their synthesis cast Indian history in a mold that
did it disservice. Indian civilization was called
world-negating and mystical and presented as 
antithetical to the West. 

In practical terms, Macaulay's program led to the
dismantling of the traditional system of village schools
which had provided near-universal literacy to the people.
The village schools had great room for improvement but
they were very effective and were one of the institutions
of local power. When they were
superseded by new schools, run by the British
bureaucracy using an alien language whose benefit ordinary
people could not see, children of the poorer
classes simply pulled out. This led to the
illiteratization of the great masses of the Indian population.

Central control was also disastrous for agriculture.
In most of the country lay a system of tanks, that had
existed for millennia. These tanks were repaired 
by village councils. The English disbanded the local
councils and instituted a system of canal irrigation 
even for places where it was unsuitable.  Soon, the tanks
fell into disuse leading to a fall of the water table.
This had disastrous effects for agriculture.

In the colonial state, the idea of profit was replaced
by that of service of the British empire. The new
system of education was instrumental in the socialization
of this view. The idea of the other-worldly Indian
was promoted.

After independence, socialists seized control of institutions 
and the process set forth by the British was much accelerated.
It is only now, fifty years after political independence, that
an objective understanding of the foundations of Indian culture
is beginning to emerge. 

ESSENCES

India of the popular textbooks is at odds with
facts of history. Ronald Inden, a professor at the 
University of Chicago, asks the basic question of the West's
representation of India in his highly praised book 
[Imagining India.] He suggests that stereotypes in 
these narratives are based on the West's own 
desires for world hegemony, and fantasies about its rationality. 
He argues that the West's major depictions of India as the 
civilization of caste, villages, spiritualism and divine kings - and 
as a land ruled by imagination rather than reason - have had 
the effect of depriving Indians of the capacity to order their 
world. As a consequence, India, even after independence, is
being dominated by the West or its surrogates.

Inden says that the West has created [essences] of 
India and Indian society. In doing so, it has denied 
the reality of what India was and is, and created a 
manageable but grossly distorted view. Ideas found in Indian 
culture are taken out of their context and used 
inappropriately elsewhere.  In creating these essences the
West denies Indians agency in their own history. Shackled 
by these ideas, the Indian is unable to shape his own destiny. 

The colonialist scholar asserts that the essence of 
Indian thought and culture is clear from the Vedic 
times onward, and so, what Indians did during all that
and subsequent periods can only be in conformity with this 
essence. Anything not in conformity with this
essence is denied to exist.

Western Sanskrit scholarship is particularly culpable 
since it tended to view the entire corpus of 
Sanskrit literature--all 4000 plus years 
of it--as barely changing in its depiction of
religion, political configuration, and social 
organization. The focus on religious texts in 
Sanskrit philology has tended to create the 
impression that Indians are primarily [spiritual], 
interested only in the imagination, and that
political and social complexities did not exist in
their society.

This view of Indian history served the needs of the 
colonial state. This history was then taught to the 
subjects as well as the colonial masters, and became 
the [standard] story. Many Indian Sanskritists also
adopted this history.

Another issue is that of the use of texts for which
no critical editions exist. For example, the 
texts of the dharmashastras have not been properly
studied. In spite of this a history of the classical
India has been constructed based on these legal books.

For example, the Manusmriti has no critical edition.  
It is quite certain that this book is more known outside 
India than in India.  Of the many friends I have had 
in India, none ever had seen the Manusmriti, yet it 
is supposed to represent the law-book that guides Hindu morals.

The disconnect between the reality of life in India and its 
portraiture in Western books is enormous. Anyone who has
grown up in India is acutely aware of this. In spite of this,
many Indians choose to embrace the Western stereotypes.
But this disconnect causes confusion, self-loathing 
and helplessness. Some respond by turning away from all 
history, which can only be debilitating. 

Neither by embracing a false history or by rejecting
it altogether can the Indian mind be cleansed of the
encrustations placed on it by the colonialist Western 
narrative.  The past must be confronted on its own terms, 
and Inden shows that once that is done, India turns out to be
a place like any other, with its agency, science, and 
rationality. Only when the encrustations are removed will the
Indians become a free people.

INTERACTION WITH THE [OTHER]

There is an old myth that the East and the West 
have forever been apart. But archaeologists are 
finding evidence of the ancient interaction
between India and the West. This interaction was through
overland and sea trade routes. In view of the trade,
movements of people and ideas, the emphasis of the
previous generation of historians to apportion
credit for one discovery or another to any specific
racial or national group is meaningless.

The supersession of the 19th century paradigm of India 
is not due only to new results from archaeology and 
literary analysis. The experience of the expatriate
Indian has disproven the race theories of yesterday.

Not only have Indians established successful businesses
in the West, they have been one of the most dynamic
groups behind the information technology revolution
both by technological innovations and providing
venture capital to cover risks. The children of the
emigrating Indians have done even better than their
parents and are becoming leaders in the professions
and in industry.

Within India as well, as the controls in the
industrial sector were loosened, Indians have shown
that they can compete internationally. Indian software
industry has established itself as one of the 
strongest in the world. 

I am saying this just to make the point that all humans,
regardless of their ethnic origin, have the same
potential. If Indians have been able to shake off
the burden of stereotyping of more than a century,
other ethnic groups, similarly labeled during the heyday 
of colonial rule, must find a way get connected to their own history.

INNER SCIENCES

Apart from its expected contributions to the world
in the field of science and technology, the appeal
of India is also due to its long-standing romance 
with the spirit.  Indians have asked deep questions about
out existence: Who are we? What is the nature of our inner
self? The art historian and philosopher Heinrich Zimmer, 
put it thus:  ``We of the Occident are about to arrive 
at a crossroads that were reached by the thinkers of India 
some seven hundred years before Christ. That is the real reason
why we become both vexed and stimulated, uneasy yet interested, 
when confronted with the concepts and images of Oriental wisdom.''

Modern science, having mastered the outer reality, has come
to the frontier of the inner world -- that includes the mind
and consciousness. But scientists despair that their reductionist
tools would ever be capable of dealing with their mysteries.

The Vedic texts consider reality to transcend the duality
of matter and mind. This non-dual reality is
termed [Brahman].  Although seen to be present in all its 
material manifestations, Brahman
is understood best as the knowing subject within us.
Later literature -- like the Yoga Vasishtha and the 
Tripura Rahasya -- self-consciously describes itself
as addressing the mystery of consciousness.

But the vocabulary used in these texts
challenges the modern reader. Scholars are
hoping that translating this vocabulary into
a modern form will allow us to unlock
the hidden meaning behind Vedic myths, and provide
new directions to researchers in the field of
psychology and consciousness studies.


A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE


Columbus, in search of a new seaway to India, ended up
discovering America. Since then America and India have met in the
realm of the spirit and, more recently, as partners
in the development of information technology. 
In the 19th century, the Transcendentalists,
inspired by Indian thought, gave a characteristic orientation 
to America's self-definition. Mohandas Gandhi was, in turn,
influenced by Thoreau, one of the Transcendentalists,
to embark on his Satyagraha movement in South Africa
and India. Half a century ago, Mohandas Gandhi's ideas
influenced the civil rights movement in America. 
Most recently, Hindu wisdom about yoga, mind-body connection, 
and self-knowledge is being recognized by the American
mainstream. It appears that we are nearing the time when  
the quest of Columbus will be taken to its logical conclusion, 
to an understanding the heart of the Indian civilization. 


Indian spirituality, an unbroken sequence that goes back to hoary
antiquity, holds a special fascination for all seekers. It is a
spirituality that is non-sectarian, universal and unconnected to
ritual. Addressing the deepest questions of meaning and
knowledge, it seems to speak to man's  innermost concerns in this
age of science. 


India has valued material and spiritual growth.
Kings and emperors sought to conquer India for its
material wealth; the campaign of Alexander, the invasions
of the Turks, the voyage of Columbus, the British empire--these
all had India as the focus. Indian sages,
philosophers and mystics have held out a shining vision that has
inspired the world. Even Alexander took Indian yogis back to
Greece with him.

Indian thought was taken to China and Southeast Asia by
missionaries and traders, it may also have provided key impulses 
to Western thought. We find the Indic people in West Asia 
in the second millennium BC, in the
Kassite kingdom of Babylon and the Mitannis of Israel. The father
of the famous Queen Tadukhipa of Egypt was the Mitanni king
Tushratha (or Dasharatha). The Indic element has been seen in the
beginnings of Greek art. It is quite conceivable that the
religious traditions of West Asia preserve a remembrance of their
Indic past. 

The modern mind was shaped after adoption by the West of the twin
beliefs of living in harmony with nature and search for a
scientific basis to reality. In the past 300 years, these ideas
of universality and a quest for knowledge -- which are also
Indian values -- have transformed European and American society. 
Many of the greatest writers and scientists of the past 
100 years have taken inspiration from Indic ideas.

Perhaps the most remarkable intellectual achievement of the
twentieth century was quantum theory, which is at the basis of
our understanding of chemistry, biology, and physics and,
consequently, it is at the basis of the century's astonishing
technological advances. One of the two creators of this theory
was Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961). In an autobiographical essay, 
he explains that his discovery of quantum mechanics was an attempt 
to give form to central ideas of Vedanta which, in this indirect sense,
played a role in the birth of the subject.

Schrodinger's influential [What is Life?] also used Vedic
ideas. The book became instantly famous although it was
criticized by some for its emphasis on Indian ideas.  Francis
Crick, the co-discoverer of the DNA code, credited this book
for key insights that led him to his revolutionary discovery.

According to his biographer Walter Moore, there is
a clear continuity between Schrodinger's understanding of
Vedanta and his research: "The unity and continuity 
of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity 
of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world
view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of
separable interacting material particles. During the next few
years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers
created a universe based on superimposed inseparable waves of
probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely
consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One."

There are several reasons for us to believe that India will
be a key player in the events of the 21st century. This will
be due partly to the economic power that India
will wield in world affairs. But more than this India's
unique role will be address humankind's yearning for knowledge of self.
The idea that knowledge is everyone's basic right
will let people from all over the world recognize that
all are equal citizens of the global village.