Colonised Minds: The Legacy of Intellectual Theft and Forgotten Heritage

After seventy-seven years of independence India has still not been fully able to pick herself out of the rubble and remnants of its colonial past. The vestige of the colonial hangover largely contributes to the life of the Indians, shaping societal decisions, norms, and everyday choices, reflecting the reality that much of the Indian population remains mentally colonised to this day. The institutional and intellectual shackles of colonialism stil remain, manifesting in an inferiority complex about Indian culture and an obsession with western ideals. Since their arrival, the British sought to reinterpret or erase Indian history, culture, and heritage. It was seen as essential as the English had calculated the benefits of this ‘reeducation’ for the East India Company. Most of them believed that the Indian civilisation was primitive and exhibited rudimentary traits, thereby necessitating transformation as part of the ‘white man’s burden’. This led to the enforced neglect and misrepresentation of the traditional Indian knowledge systems and the establishment of an education system that was heavily biased towards Eurocentric ideologies. This knowledge system was designed to show European civilisation as  the pinnacle of progress, while dismissing the achievements of other cultures, especially those of ancient India. It attempted to mainstream the English language and bandwagon India into the train of Western history.. This birthed a generation of Indians who were disconnected from their roots, ignorant of their  history, and conditioned to see their heritage as inferior. Lord Macaulay once famously asserted that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.”  Yet, the Mahabharata alone, one of India’s epic masterpieces, is far more voluminous than both Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined. The former not only surpasses the latter in length but also encompasses a vast spectrum of philosophical, political, and moral discourse, reflecting a literary and intellectual heritage that is both ancient and sophisticated. 

Ancient India was a cradle of scientific innovation, whose scholars making remarkable contributions in fields as diverse as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. Many of these discoveries predated European discoveries by centuries, yet they were appropriated by the West and often credited to European thinkers. This intellectual theft not only deprived India of its rightful place in the history of human achievements but also reinforced the colonial narrative that Europe was the sole driver of human progress.

The West for example took credit for the atomic theory, deriving it from Greek philosophers.  However it is Acharya Kanad, an ancient Indian sage and philosopher, who must be credited for the same. He lived around the 6th century BCE and  posited that matter is composed of indivisible particles called “anu” (atoms). Thus, crediting John Dalton, often called the ‘father of modern atomic theory’ is certainly a debatable attribution. Ancient India’s proficiency was not limited to the sciences; it extended across a wide range of disciplines. Among the many areas of excellence, the corpus on governance was a significant one. 

Kautilya, also known as Chanakya, has given the world a rich in major treatise on governance, military affairs, and economics, the Arthashastra. He was a philosopher, economist, political thinker, strategist, and royal advisor who lived around the 4th century BCE. He is often referred as Indian Machiavelli in the West, even though Kautilya (Chanakya) predated Machiavelli by nearly 1800 years. 

Boudhayana was a mathematician and Vedic scholar, who is believed to have lived around 800 BCE—centuries before Pythagoras (570-495 BCE). Boudhayana is significant in the history of mathematics because he stated a version of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem – ‘दीर्घचतुरस्रस्याक्ष्णया रज्जुः पार्श्वमानी तिर्यग्मानी च यत्पृथग्भूते कुरुतस्तदुभयं करोति ॥’ which means ‘The diagonal of a rectangle produces both the areas which the two sides make separately’ in English. 

Another striking example of intellectual appropriation can be seen in the case of the Fibonacci sequence. Although Leonardo of Pisa, widely known as Fibonacci, is credited with introducing this sequence to the Western world through his Liber Abaci in 1202 CE, the same numerical pattern had already been explored by Pingala in his work on Sanskrit poetry. Acharya Pingala, an ancient  scholar, poet, and mathematician, believed to have lived around the 3rd century BCE, worked on binary numbers as well. It was revolutionary because it laid the groundwork for how modern computers process information using ones and zeros. This appropriation was later rediscovered and developed further by European mathematicians, notably Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century. While Leibniz is often credited with inventing the binary system, it is clear that Pingala had already laid its foundations centuries earlier. 

Another notable contribution of ancient India was medical knowledge. A renowned physician Sushruta, also known as the “Father of Surgery,” is credited for the development of plastic surgery. He lived around 600 BCE and authored the Sushruta Samhita, a comprehensive text on surgery, medicine, and anatomy. He documented over 300 surgical procedures, described 121 surgical instruments, many resembling modern tools, and detailed rhinoplasty (nasal reconstruction)—a technique later adopted by British surgeons in the 18th century after observing it in India.

The Heliocentric theory, which states that the Sun is at the centre of the solar system and that the Earth revolves around it, is most famously attributed to the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. However, Aryabhata (c. 476–550 CE), in his text Āryabhaṭīya, proposed that The Earth rotates on its axis, which explains the apparent movement of the stars. By declaring that the Earth is not stationary, Aryabhata laid a logical foundation for the idea that Earth might also revolve around the Sun. While the value of π is often linked to mathematicians like Archimedes or Leibniz, Aryabhata  calculated it accurately over 1000 years earlier. 

Our ancestors not only taught us sciences, mathematics or philosophy but also exemplified the values of tolerance, fraternity, and cooperative solidarity, an ethos vocalised through Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. Nevertheless the history taught in schools and read in most books will remain Eurocentric until we decide to address the falsification. While making our way to Viksit Bharat 2047, it is time to rewrite history and revive our indigenous knowledge enlightened by a scientific temper and moral reasoning. This does not entail rejecting outside influences, but underscores that foreign cultures must not be embraced at the cost and through the denial of our own.