By Sunil Kumar
Shri Sandeep Balakrishna once again at his erudite and hard-hitting best. A warrior for dharma, he exposes the shallowness of Marxist and Leftist thought and the Nehruvian cabal that dominated the intellectual mindscape, policies and systematic deracination of the Indian mind since independence.
He emphasises that decolonisation involves all-encompassing study and scholarship that will help us evolve practical and implementable solutions. It is not a ‘specific’ goal but a continuum. He stresses on the virtues of the traditional Hindu system- Memory, depth and error-free expertise. Like Malhotra, Neelakandan, J Sai Deepak, Balagangadhara and others his main point- ‘The West understood Bharatavarsha primarily through a Christian, colonial, materialist and sociological prisms without any feel for culture, languages, customs and traditions.
The diverse essays are clubbed under three sections- Classical Bharatavarsha, Colonial India and Postcolonial India. Balakrishna peppers the text with examples from Sanskrit literature, P.V Kane, D.V. Gundappa, Kannada and Tamil movies, Bhyrappa and Shatavadhani R. Ganesh, Sartre and Rousseau all the way to Ranbir Kapoor and Akshay Kumar’s movies.
All in all, the passionate advocacy of Dharma is the highlight of the book. Keeping in mind the current situation in Bangladesh, a quote by Swami Vivekananda mentioned in this book hit home- ‘Think of the good ” did to the world, and think of the great evil that has been done through his fanaticism. Think of the millions massacred through his teachings, mothers bereft of their children, children made orphans, whole countries destroyed, millions upon millions of people killed. Real inspiration never contradicts reason, but fulfils it.
