The gifts of history come at a great price. A price paid in the blood of innocents. But these gifts are what make civilisation, with music, languages, art, theatre and dance, and architecture acting as catalysts that shape it. There is no nation in the world that hasn't survived invasions, without their culture being enriched and their genes growing stronger. The casualty of conquest, however, is the identity of indigenous people, who, by subjugation, collaboration or resistance, lose their right to be what they are. This is the cruel paradox of progress.
Colonisation, described as the enslavement of peoples by outsiders, is a conundrum of contradictions; did Aryans colonise India if the migration theory is to be believed? Or does it make the French, who established forts in Bengal and Puducherry, liberators for siding with Tipu Sultan against the British? And is Tipu a coloniser for converting thousands by the sword to Islam, even though he was killed by East India Company soldiers? The dialectics of occupation is confusing, although as an absolute truth, it means enslaving people in order to plunder and kill.
As Hindu India seeks to purify its past, anti-colonialism is sweeping the day. Political leaders everywhere are changing Western names of public buildings and roads. Forgotten heroes and martyrs are being resurrected in generational memory and textbooks. Narendra Modi has called for Mangarh Dham in Rajasthan -- where 1,500 tribals led by Guru Gobind Singh were massacred by the British in 1913 -- to become a global tourist destination, so that the terrible travesty of colonial cruelty will never be forgotten.
But as with all reformation trends, there will be hits and misses. Leaders who haven't received their rightful due are getting a fresh paint job while paperback historians are falling over their ideological iPads to exalt historical figures of dubious conviction. A new ethos is being birthed; a new hagiography of free India taking form. Indian liberals, mocked as slave mentality ostriches, are the usual suspects in colonial collaboration.
Forgotten in the storm of this fierce national pride is the fact that they aren't the only ones enjoying the fruits of invasions. Various foreigners were bringing their exotica to India from the time Arabs, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans sailed to south Indian ports for trade. A bunch of invaders, Orientals and Westerners brought strange vegetables, meats, plants, music, dance, garments and architecture to India's vast shores. Here, they merged into new styles with old spirit. The story is the same the world across. The Romans brought the concept of law to countries they subjugated; they also wiped out the Etruscans and Carthage from the face of the earth.
Portuguese is the first language in Brazil, which was a colony in the 16th century; Urdu is the aesthetics of Hindi and diluting its influence is like removing the garnish from biriyani. Gujarat had African rulers, Brahmin defenders and a Sikh emperor. Civilisation is a potpourri of invasion, subjugation and regeneration. Cultural seclusion is an inadvisable matrix, as incongruous in a globalised world as a nun in a gambling den.
Wearing the Islamic-derived garment salwar kameez, eating appam and stew, or watching an Odissi ballet is quintessentially Indian. So is taking pride in the fact that Indians head some of the biggest globocorps and foreign governments, are illustrious doctors and academics abroad, and win literary prizes in English. We can't escape history. We can only choose the right side to be on.
Ravi Shankar can be reached at ravi@newindianexpress.com.