Am reading J Sai Deepak’s brilliant book, India that is Bharat. Its the first in the trilogy and if its anything to go by, this trilogy will become a text book soon. There is a beautiful explanation in his book about Colonialism and Decolonialism.
Sharing just this one sentence explanation for the purpose of this blogpost –
“Decoloniality has been described as the movement for reclamation and restoration of indigeneity and its subjectivities.” Deepak, J Sai. India, that is Bharat (p. 65). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
INS Vikrant
Two days back, PM Modi was at the Cochin Shipyard to commission the indigenously built Aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant. A very proud moment for everyone…. after 75 years of Independence, we are reclaiming our past glory in ship building. Yes, I understand that only 76% of INS Vikrant’s components are fully made in India but that’s a huge step forward.
There is mention of ships in the RigVeda and more recently, the Kalinga, Chola, Maurya, Satavahana, Vijayanagara, and Maratha empires have had powerful navies. India has been a sea faring nation forever yet courtesy the distortians (read historians) we were led to believe that we had no ability to build ships :(.
That’s why INS Vikrant is one wave closer to decolonialism. 🙂
King George’s Cross
For 7 decades we had our colonial master’s cross on the Indian Navy’s ensign… finally we have Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s seal along with the tricolour on the Indian Navy’s ensign. As Anand Ranganathan says it beautifully, some advance to greatness, others return to it and we do both. 🇮🇳
Its so difficult to shake off the colonial mindset, but someday we will be decolonised fully. Till then, its one step, one wave, one component closer…
Do see this short video of PM Modi –
Jai Hind. Jai Hind ki Nausena. शं नो वरुणः
Jai Hind ! Jai Vikrant! More power to our selfless Indian Navy.
One more step towards decolonizing by getting rid of the George Cross! Yay! Hope our collective mindsets decolonize swiftly as well. We are so much more than a “former British colony” as Bloomberg UK recently quoted when mentioning India overtaking the UK in economic growth. I wish the word colony is erased from this planet ! It’s a dirty word associated with oppression and misery.