E-Paper
Decolonisation without searching for the ‘other’
Today, it is clear that the model of development crafted in the West, and adopted worldwide, has plunged all living systems into unprecedented crisis
Long before decolonisation of the Indian mind became a popular topic, a group of young IIT graduates dedicated themselves to understanding Indian knowledge systems. Starting in the late 1970s, this group, named Patriotic and People-Oriented Science and Technology (PPST), brought together a wide range of practitioners of traditional knowledge systems.
Almost half a century after PPST was formed, the fate of Indic knowledge systems is still undecided. But this endeavour matters because here is a meaningful and non-reactive variety of decolonisation.
While the patriotic in PPST’s name might easily make it look synonymous with jingoistic nationalism — in fact, its legacy is important precisely because it was never based on or driven by resentment against any “other” — foreigners or otherwise. PPST’s core is driven by curiosity and a hunger to learn from practitioners of Indic knowledge cultures and see if building upon this could help solve problems of contemporary India.
In many ways, the PPST dream has not come to fruition. And yet the question that lurked in the shadows at a recent PPST reunion, held at Kuvempu University in Shivamogga is quite tantalising. Could it be that the time is now more ripe for pre-modern non-European knowledge systems?
In the closing decades of the 20th century, it was much harder to challenge what the West sold as development and progress. Today, it is clear that the model of development crafted in the West, and adopted worldwide, has plunged all living systems into an unprecedented existential crisis.
There is now an urgent need to ask: What will ensure the well-being of all living systems? This does not mean that humans should freeze into a state of do-nothing, touch-nothing. India’s over 3,000-year history of human production systems was based on co-existing with the ecosystems of the biosphere.
Of course, such systems were based on a cosmology and metaphysics. Going forward, it is that philosophical and ethical base which matters far more than specific traditional technologies. For example, in the villages of Nimar region in Madhya Pradesh, there is a long-standing practice of individuals planting one each of these three trees — a banyan, a peepul, and a neem. Planting these trees and nurturing them, I was told, fulfils you as an embodied being. Then any pleasures and worldly successes a person attains in life are incidental.
It is important to note that none of these three trees produces a marketable “produce”. Yet each of these trees is vital to the balance of the local ecosystem as well as for human and animal health care. If development had been synonymous with this world view, then the Narmada, which flows through this region, would never have been seen merely as a massive body of water “wastefully” pouring into the sea. Even with modern engineering skills being deployed, the water in the river could have been used by humans without destroying the river as a living ecosystem.
For it to be meaningful and creative, decolonisation of the Indian mind will have to be more focused on the fundamentals of such cosmologies. When this is done with rigour and genuine curiosity, resentments about the past and assorted “others” should wither away.
This is what the pioneering founders and later members of the PPST network managed to do over the last 45 years. The road ahead is not easy. Pre-modern cosmologies were dependent on those who lived then having patience and the ability to define efficiency in holistic ways.
The good news is that this awareness seems to come naturally to most of the young people who were present at the Shivamogga meeting.
Rajni Bakshi is an author and founder of the YouTube channel, Ahimsa Conversations. The views expressed are personal
