Many in India’s elite continue to promote the notion that pre-colonial India was feudalistic, pre-rational and by implication in the need of being invaded for its own benefit, Minister of Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs M Venkaiah Naidu said.
Speaking at the inaugural of the 38{+t}{+h}Indian Social Science Congress organised by the Indian Academy of Social Sciences and Andhra University here on Sunday, the Union Minister said that it was the responsibility of the academia to ensure that youth were well-versed with Indian culture, history and tradition.
“Grave misconceptions still prevail regarding India’s contribution to global civilisation. It is obligatory on part of eminent scholars to present a realistic and historic account on this aspect. The continuity and relevance of Indian tradition of knowledge generation, creation, dissemination and utilisation has been acknowledged as unique that aims at ‘Sarva bhutah hite ratah’ (for the welfare of all). Why should our youth not be familiar with it?” Mr Naidu said.
Decrying the running down of anything Indian by some of the academics, he said: “What is not amounting to scientific temper need not be superstitious and irrational.” The British colonisers could never accept the fact that Indians were highly civilised, because such acknowledgement would destroy the civilising mission of Europe that was the intellectual premise for colonisation.
“The history of India was fabricated to ensure that future generations of mentally colonised people will believe in the inferiority of their own traditional knowledge and in the superiority of the colonisers’ modern knowledge and many in India’s intellectual elite continue to promote this notion,” he said.
